Lucifer's Ambition
by RahXephon
Summary: Eons from now, an ancient conspiracy has spread the children of mankind amongst the stars, but their folly also brought the end of Earth. Not anymore. The descendants of mankind race are now racing to retrieve the lost treasures of Lucifer on the barren planet of Earth. The alliance that manages to capture the Lance, the Champion and the Beast will reign supreme. AU, OCs.
1. Prologue

May 13, 2009

**Author's Notes:** This fic is an alternative to one of my other sci-fi stories, _**Revival of Honor**_. Though I enjoyed writing RoH, a massive amount of technical details and lore bogged me down. In addition, it turned out that the author of the universe I crossed over with didn't want any fanfics written for his work. While fanfic writers generally don't listen to such demands, David Weber is my absolute favourite author. His massive _Honor Harrington_ series captivated me completely in his world. Furthermore, I enjoyed reading his _Safehold_ series as well. Anyone reading my most recent works will recognize elements of Weber's writing philosophy. For better or for worse, I had decided to put RoH in the freezer.

However, after a long period of writing fantasy stories, I started to get that sci-fi itch again. Many people voiced their support for RoH, and I wanted to write another fic somewhat similar to that. In addition, my head was filled with potential ideas formed from reading other great books and fanfics. Consistent with my Naruto story, I wanted this fic to be a 'crossover' with an original world, in order for me to get rid of cumbersome canon and also exercise my world building imagination.

Let me warn you, that although the basic plot idea is not that original anymore in the Evangelion fandom, I am still writing this in my own preference. This means you can expect all of my usual long-windedness and god-awful slow pace, in addition to an unconventional plotline. And like my Naruto story, the main characters I present in this story might not be all that appealing. I can only advise you to be patient and open-minded to enjoy this new fic.

**Extended Summary:** The Angels kept coming. Tens, hundreds, thousands. The war against the Angels became a war against time. Humanity developed new technologies and implmented better strategies to contain the Angel arrivals. But their only hope had only a limited amount of life, and when that life perished, the Apocalypse was upon them. Still, wonder by wonder, some of humanity was able to escape the wrath of the Angels. Centuries passed as the far-flung children of mankind settled onto new planets and began to reassert themselves. The Angels were forgotten, and attention shifted to their own midst, warring for territory and wealth rather than for their own survival. However, that peaceful period would end, and a new event would unlock opportunities not available to mankind. Many eons from now, the descendants of mankind are racing to retrieve the lost treasures of Lucifer on the barren planet of Earth. The alliance that manages to obtain the Lance, the Emissary and the Beast will reign supreme.

**Disc****laimer: **I do not own the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and am not affiliated to their creators and copyright holders. I did create the universe depicted in this fic though.

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_**Lucifer's Ambition**_

_Prologue_

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The conflict had gone on without end while years ticked by as humanity put up a valiant effort against the dreaded Angels. Summer after summer, winter past winter, the Earth continued to revolve around the sun while the moon followed obediently. Like all aspects of nature, the war against the Enemy was nothing more than long periods of rest intermitted with short bursts of intense battle.

The struggle went on for so long that it became almost routine to the citizens of Earth. The Battlefield would be cleaned up from the previous fight's mess and any damage to support and defence installations would be repaired. When the Enemy arrived in the form of yet another nightmarish shape, it would be met with the Battlefield's formidable static defences. Controlled independently by personnel deep underground, the armoured weapons platform would hurl the best they had at their opponent in an attempt to sneak in a free kill. That they actually succeeded a handful of times made the massive expenditure worthwhile.

The gun platforms were first equipped with primitive devices known as cannons and missiles. Packed with a variety of conventional and N2 warheads, they often accomplished nothing but leaving craters. However, as the decades passed, the weaponry grew more sophisticated. Cannons and missiles made way for positron cannons and gamma lasers, which in turn made way for experimental black field generators ("BFGs"), masitron arrays ("mazzers") and DTL missiles ("loopers").

The weapon batteries weren't confined to the surface either. Massive progress had been made in different forms of propulsion and the power generators needed to keep them running. While humanity had to do with conventional rockets for the first few decades of the Angel War, remarkable breakthroughs in fusion technology made experimental gravmag drives feasible. Space militarization proceeded at a rapid pace as the night sky brightened from the lights of burgeoning space docks and massive orbital forts.

The forts provided a significant tactical advantage. The huge constructs of nanocompsteel ranged from the relatively 'agile' superbattleship-sized anchors to massive city-sized bulwarks. Fitted with a variety of energy, particle and kinetic weaponry, they defended against threats from space and ensured the unity of Earth as they hung above humanity's head. In addition, they served as an adequate launching platform to outer space.

The first colonization effort quickly started soon after. Mars, with its mildly inhospitable environment, became a regular destination for the first space colonists. Many transports and other commercial ships carried many personnel and goods to the several Domes that dotted its surface. The more daring individuals ventured further, from one of the moons of the gas giants, or one of the stations positioned at the edge of the system. As generations rose and fell, the Sol System began to accommodate more and more gravmag-propelled craft.

Based upon impeding, storing, and expelling the elusive collection of grav particles through manipulation of focused black fields, the gravmag drive proved to be the economic way to travel in space. However, the drive did carry one glaring limit: the presence of another gravitational body was required for the gravmag drive to act on effectively. After all, it was not possible to escape the fact that the force of gravity is caused by two objects of mass. Only moon, planet and sun-sized objects had enough mass for the Gravmag-drive to act effectively upon. Gravmag-propelled vessels provided the most thrust when they were on the surface of a planet. As the distance increases, the amount of thrust would be reduced as there were less grav particles to act upon. There had been several instances already where poorly crewed space ships accidentally slung themselves beyond the Sol System by travelling along a carelessly planned trajectory that left the ship too far away from any celestial bodies.

Explorations into the vast expanse of deep space always proved to be a one-way trip. For all its miracles, the gravmag drive was still constrained by the speed of light. While the ion drive made significant advances, it was still impractical due to the low amount of thrust that was generated in comparison to the gravmag drive. It still took plenty of decades or centuries to perfect the technology. Another hopeful candidate was a true grav drive, which would not only enhance existing forces of gravity like the gravmag, but would also be capable of generating a gravity field out of nothing, propelling the mass in the field into any direction. Still, a much higher understanding of theory needed to be discovered first before it would even be remotely possible.

As humanity began to exploit the fullest extent of the Sol System, they also consolidated their hold on Earth. Nations ceased to exist while languages became extinct. Earth's population began to explode, and the cities struggled to accommodate them all. More and more areas became settled and urbanized, in particular the neglected areas of Africa and Siberia. And when people arrived, so did megafarms and megafactories. Earth's industrial output exploded, further fuelling demand for imports from the colonies and asteroid fields.

Guarding the growing trend of prosperity was the United Nations, or the Free World, or the Empire of Earth, or whatever name it chose to adopt when the next set of rebels took over. The cycling of names and labels proved to be so inconsequential to the daily life of an average citizen that they simply referred the government as the central authority. While the central authority may occasionally prove to be inadequate in the ways of governing, they still performed their primary duty with brutal efficiency.

The central authority's main task was to prevent the extinction of mankind. They performed their duty through the possession of the most terrible weapon of mankind.

The Evangelion Project.

The Evangelions were the result of an unholy trinity of flesh, machine, and a power so ill understood that even a century after its invention, mankind had no grasp on its working. No matter the beasts' gruesome nature, they were devastatingly effective against the Angels. While some effort had been made into harnessing the mysterious source of their power on spaceships, only a completely functional Evangelion was able to conjure the scientifically impossible A.T. Field, countering the Angels' defence with humanity's own.

When the Angels were stripped with their most important layer of defence, the Evangelions could focus on evasion, while the advanced weapon batteries pummelled the Angel into submission. Conventional thermal and explosive only scratched most of the Angels, but after the introduction of positron cannons and gamma lasers, the odds of breaching a conventional Angel's core was vastly increased. With the introduction of the black field generator and other sophisticated weaponry at the turn of the century, only the most unusual and resilient Angel stood any chance of advancing.

From mountain-sized behemoths, to swarms of insect-like clones, to bizarre immaterial phenomena, it took the utmost of NERV's military and intellectual capabilities to stand off each and every attack. While some could be dealt with without endangering their most valuable assets, it was unavoidable that the Evangelions had to be deployed offensively.

While most of the EVA's were equipped with increasingly more complex weapons and armour, the basis of their strength was still rooted in their metaphysical power and organic capabilities. Fire was best fought with fire, after all. From the first prototype to the latest generation of mass-produced models, the Evangelions have withstood countless barrages intended to put humanity to the grave.

Still, the Evangelions had several limitations that prevented more widespread use. They were birthed, not created. They were grown, not assembled. And with the exception of the venerable Unit 01, the _Angelslayer_, the Evangelions shared the same flesh as that of the First of the Angels. However small, frozen and helpless he was in his embryonic state, Adam could nevertheless exert his influence upon his offspring. Every extraction of tissue resulted in an ever-degrading sample. The first series of mass produced Evangelions were only barely shorter than the _Angelslayer_. The fourth generation was only half as tall, and the tenth generation was the last to be able to form a sustainable A.T. Field. Any subsequent generation resulted in nothing more than a macabre collection of ordinary flesh in the size of an elephant.

Lilith proved to be even more stubborn. Though an ever-present source of LCL, her torn off flesh contained none of the potential of her most prominent offspring. It was as if she _wanted_ the _Angelslayer_ to be her sole heir. Even suffering from massive amounts of torture, abuse, and reckless experimentation, she continued to hold on to her will in silence. Man eventually grew tired, and left her in her lonely cell and only came to farm her precious lifeblood.

More than four hundred Evangelions had been produced during the Angel War, a monstrous achievement, considering that growing even one to full strength was a massive undertaking. The first mass produced series were abominable monsters, little better than their Angel counterparts. The winged Angels could fly, and were able to wield the devastatingly effective imitation Lances. However, with the sudden collapse of the Lances' obscure and secretive manufacturers, the knowledge to produce those hellish weapons was lost. And, however powerful the imitation Lances were, they were unable to withstand the constant strain of battle and the testament of time.

The second, third and fourth generation were produced in higher amounts, up to a hundred combined. They were smaller, but nimbler. Their S2 engines were also scaled back, but retained more excess power. While the second and third generation still flew the skies with wings, the fourth gen was the first to adopt gravmag propulsion technology. As their S2 engines provided plentiful amounts of power, the EVA's were able to arm themselves with a variety of compact X-Ray lasers and bulky fusion power augmented positron rifles as well. Only the most capable pilots were entrusted with the imitation Lances, until the last one disintegrated after fifty years of active use and ten years of being examined in detail.

The fifth generation and onwards marked a fundamental shift in tactics and design. No longer large enough to generate A.T. Fields powerful enough to neutralize an Angel's AT Field, they were intended to swarm. The smaller Evangelions were incapable of inflicting significant damage through hand-to-hand combat, so they were armed with the latest toys. First deployed with gamma lasers, they quickly adopted black field generators and masitron arrays to their arsenal. The new DTL bombs were still too large and heavy to be launched from a small Evangelion, but due to their unusual effectiveness, NERV designated a handful of seventh gen EVAs to act as minelayers, or kamikaze units as a last resort.

Though the later generations were able to carry and power successively devastating weapons, the tenth gen differed little from conventional vehicles such as hover tanks or aerial fortresses. Angels immune against the latest generation of weaponry would swat the small EVA's like flies. Only the pre-fifth gen stood a chance against these powerful opponents.

NERV employed the best of the best and the finest of the finest, but standing in the way was the fact that human pilots still needed to be bonded to their units. That made staffing complicated when pilots died but their units survived.

The Marduk Institute's former duty was to identify compatible pilots for the zeroeth generation Evangelions, but was quickly put in charge of an extensive family and breeding program that provided a steady supply of bonded human pilots. The earlier generations of mass produced Evangelions were choosy, requiring not only a natural genetic bond, but a genuine emotional bond as well. While each pilot and their offspring were vigorously trained from their birth to become capable pilots, the Institute nonetheless made the pilot's lives somewhat comfortable to ensure maximum compatibility. As long as the family bond stayed strong, any relative would be able to pilot their bonded EVA.

When all members of a single family died, the EVA that was bonded to them turned silent. Not even clones or artificial offspring were able to achieve any meaningful synchronization. With no further use, the 'widow' EVAs would be broken down to their component parts and used as replacement parts in emergencies.

While many Evangelions have been built over the lifetime of the Angel War, there were never enough of them at any single time. Each Angel was unique, and each held a trick up their sleeves. In the opening days of the War, only three EVAs held back the might of the Angels. Powerful as they were, NERV was still at its infancy. Unit 00 was destroyed in the battle against the Sixteenth, while Unit 02 was prematurely destroyed during the chaos of a foolish civil war. Only the venerable _Angelslayer_ survived.

As the champion of humanity, the _Angelslayer_ saw much action alongside the first, second and third generation of mass produced Evangelions. By the time the fourth generation was introduced, NERV had relegated the purple giant to guard the last doors of the Apocalypse.

While her younger siblings fought the enemy on the surface, the _Angelslayer_ simply waited. She waited against any who dared to pass through the doors of Heaven and enter her domain. Guided by her aging pilot, she tore against any and all who were strong enough to reach the holy place. As the largest and strongest Evangelion, piloted by the most talented and experienced pilot, she tore each and every manifestation of God apart. While there were only a few fifty or so times that humanity was almost destroyed, the _Angelslayer_ nonetheless proved her supremacy each and every single time. It was no wonder that humanity began to regard her as more than just a weapon.

For a century and more, humanity held firm. But as the Angels kept coming without end, man was slow to realize their one fatal weakness.

They were relying on an aging and increasingly feeble human being.

Though pilot Ikari was the sole chosen pilot of the _Angelslayer_, he nonetheless suffered from unimaginable amounts of trauma, experimentation and abuse following the aftermath of the first civil war. Refusing to cooperate and pilot his EVA under the new victors, he was coerced to continue piloting. From beatings, to emotional shocks, to sustained neglect and abuse, NERV had tried every technique imaginable to keep their prize pilot in line. They had mistakingly assumed that Unit 01 would only be needed for a few years more while an endless supply of mass produced models would keep the Earth safe for millennia to come.

The subsequent revelation of the mass produced Evangelion's many weaknesses and limited numbers had a profound effect. It turned Unit 01 from an obsolete piece of junk to the most powerful defence against the Angels. After another brief civil war that resulted from the outrage, the next incarnation of NERV had drastically reversed its policy concerning their treatment of pilot Ikari in an attempt to salvage the mess.

But the damage had already been done. Though he had never been pushed too far, pilot Ikari nonetheless sustained many bodily injuries. The resulting damage triggered subtle measures from the _Angelslayer_ as her pilot was forced into her entry plug. Encompassed in Lilith's LCL and engaged in a psychic connection with a powerful Lilith-based Evangelion, the pilot's body was exposed to unknown amounts of contamination over a period of a handful of years. By the time the pilot was rehabilitated, it became apparent that pilot Ikari was not quite human anymore.

Which meant that pilot Ikari was effectively incapable of producing natural offspring.

Direct clones proved to be incapable of life, due to pilot Ikari's altered sequence of genes which ordinarily made him incapable of life. As with the case of the mass produced models' pilots, the Marduk Institute engaged in extensive genetic manipulation to provide replacement pilots for Unit 01. As expected, with neither a natural genetic or emotional bond to the original pilot, all attempts failed. Even desperate experiments to duplicate the 'Fourteenth Angel event' proved to be fruitless. By the time pilot Ikari's hair greyed out, scientific attempts to prolong Unit 01's operational lifetime beyond the death of her original pilot were set aside.

Even though official action ceased, it didn't quench humanity's fears. During the times of increasing deification of the _Angelslayer_ and her pilot, many different ceremonies have taken place in a desperate attempt to 'persuade' Unit 01 to accept a successor pilot. Nothing had succeeded in persuading the Beast.

Humanity's future was uncertain.

For all his mutations, pilot Ikari was still a mortal being. But his genetic makeup differed just enough to render many state-of-the-art medical treatments useless. Much of the medical advances of that time was based upon regeneration, but pilot Ikari's cells could not be cloned. As the pilot's organs began showing signs of fatigue after reaching a century of life, humanity began to despair in earnest. With their final protector on the brink of death, they saw their end come close.

The world rose up in panic as citizens rioted and rebelled. The central authority brutally stepped in, some times wiping out complete settlements in the process. When their collective feelings of anger and helplessness subsided, humanity prepared. While the rate of emigration to Mars and the other colonies in the Sol System increased dramatically, research had been redirected towards uncovering a viable method of FTL propulsion. Much attention had been cast upon the new Trans-Universal Theory. Its numbers promised the possibility of partially entering negative space, where ships could take advantage of its unique properties to travel faster than the speed of light.

Eventually, a brave team led by Prof. Dr. Ir. Karl Weithoff proposed an enormous and hugely expensive design of a drive capable of harnessing the forces described in the theory. Any indepedent vessel needed to power the Weitshoff drive would have to be thrice as large as the most massive space fortress in existence, the _Jupiter Sentinel II_, which took twenty years to complete.

With the cooperation of many major mining and industrial corporations, the central authority embarked upon the most ambitious project in the history of mankind. The first true colony ship was completed in a record time of five years. Larger than many asteroids and capable of sustaining up to twenty thousand humans, the _Vapula Projection_ was the first human-built vessel capable of travelling faster than light and escape the Sol System. Many millions applied to be a part of the crew of the untested ship, but only the strongest and smartest with the right genetic profile were eventually selected to take part of her first departure.

A year of intensive training followed while the ship's storage was filled with knowledge, supplies and cultural treasures. At the moment of her launch at the edge of the Sun's effective gravity well, the _Vapula Projection_ seemed to disappear from sight, but faded only halfway before disappearing in a spread-out blur to the great beyond. While days passed by in an anxious wait, the _Vapula's_ the light speed signals finally arrived back to Earth. The colony ship had dropped back to normal space after spending thirty minutes in transvariable space and successfully sent a message back to the Sol System.

They received their answer after several days of terse moments. Earth burst in joy as the Weithoff drive operated even better than expected, going at least twice as fast as the most optimistic expectations. The burst of data the _Vapula Projection_ had sent back provided useful experimental information that could be used into refining the next generation of mass produced colony ships.

As the _Vapula Projection_ travelled onwards towards the nearest star predicted to possess an Earth-like planet, humanity stripped abundant deposits of ores on the surface of its colonies to produce the first generation of colony ships. Thrice as large as the prototype, the production models were able to sustain a population of up to a hundred thousand adults. In addition to their sheer size, the massive ships were armed to the teeth with battleship-sized weapon embankments. If necessary, humanity would massacre their way through a new home planet.

The fittest, wealthiest and most capable humans were selected to crew the enormous vessels. More than seven hundred thousand men and women trained and studied to assume their lifetime positions. Five-and-a-half years from the start of construction, the first generation was complete. Their designs changed rapidly over time as different interest groups lobbied the central authority to customize every ship in order to ensure the survival of humanity.

The _Abaddon Destruction_ was the most heavily armed vessel, crewed by a higher proportion of military personnel and weapons engineers than her sister ships. Her concept was advocated by war hawks, who argued that the galaxy was hostile, and that the Angels surely lurked on some planets. Combat was inevitable, and she was therefore fitted with many redundant systems as well as a handful of powerful single weapon batteries in place of larger amounts of smaller batteries. _The Abaddon_'smain advantage would not only be her greater firepower, but also her extended range. Her only weakness was the relatively low amount of point defence, compounded by the fact that her large weapon mounts were far too slow to track small craft in shorter ranges.

The _Merihim Centurion _carried an additional twenty thousand with her slightly bulkier design. Like a diseased ball of pus, the _Centurion_ wasn't intended to win any beauty awards. Luxury was even more limited on this ship, but most of its personnel came from the less fortunate regions of Earth, so that would not be a problem. The proponents behind the _Centurion_ believed that humanity's numbers would drastically fall in the future, and that they would face many threats of extinction in space. Extensive breeding programs as well as subtle genetic modification would lead to higher growth rates. To settle all these excess humans, the _Centurion_ was fitted with extensive industrial facilities to aid in the process of colonisation.

The _Belial Transcension_ boasted fewer weapon emplacements to make room for recreational and educational facilities. She was unique in that she was entirely crewed by natural humans, as she was the only alternative to those who feared genetic modification and selective breeding. Also, the amount of sculptures, paintings, books and other works of art in the vessel was staggering. Though the ship's population was closely kept balanced, it still boasted a significant number of artists and philosophers. This was all in an effort to retain as much humanity as possible. A clear and open mind would be important to seek peace with unknown aliens through persuasion and mutual understanding, and if necessary, through concessions.

The _Leviathan Bastion_ was the toughest and most reliable colony ship. Her armour was twice as thick as the standard model, and consisted of cutting-edge nano-arranged alloys manufactured in specialized facilities. Strategically placed external gravmag plates would provide an additional measure of defence against material attacks, though there was less space and power for weapon batteries. The _Bastion_ was to be sent into the furthest and loneliest reaches of space, encountering many hazards along the way in order to find a defensible but habitable world. She would need to be in transvariable space longer than any of her other sisters, and was designed to be operational for an infinite amount of time, only needing to stop to mine for fuel.

The _Orias Vexation _was the only colony ship fitted with the experimental active cloak system. Coated with much of the limited available supply of emission reducing materials, she was the only colony ship in orbit invisible to the naked eye. Her gravmag drive boasted much weaker distortion effects than other drives of the same size, decreasing her signal profile and chances of detection. In the event that space was more populated with intelligent life than usual, the _Vexation_ was to stay out of the way of more advanced civilizations while gathering information. As such, much of her crew consisted of intelligence officers, while physicists knowledgeable in active cloak and emission reduction technology kept their stealth in peak efficiency.

The _Penemue Salvation_ carried the most extensive electronic and physical library, along with the most talented scientists specializing in the field of science and technology. Her processing power and EM functionality was second to none. In addition, rather than carrying a single large Weithoff drive, she was fitted with two smaller ones instead. While the unusual design was deemed twenty percent less efficient, it was expected that the scientists on board would be able to synchronize their output to achieve a much higher velocity. The only downside to this design was that it left less space for energy production and fuel storage, but again, it was expected that the scientists would be able to improve the processes. By dedicated at least one ship to the pure advance of science, it was hoped that the descendents of the _Salvation_ would one day discover revolutionary technologies that would advance man's supremacy.

The _Zagan Abomination _was by far the most controversial project of all. Though she looked conventional on the outside, the notorious ship possessed the most extensive and advanced genetic manipulation facilities in outer space. The _Abomination _was the only colony ship that prepared for the end of homo sapiens as a species at the hand of the Angels or other aliens, and served to preserve humanity's legacy. While the original crew would all consist of natural humans, the same couldn't be said for their offspring. Sperm cells and egg cells would be extracted from the human crew and exposed to a wide variety of treatments before fertilization. The embryo would mature in a carefully controlled pod that would subject the growing foetus to further treatments. The end result would be an entirely new species that was bred for a specific task. The genetic databanks already held a number of pre-programmed sets of genes that would give birth to exohumans that would survive in worlds with extreme gravity or extreme atmosphere.

After many delays, the Seven was finally towed to the edge of space of the Sol System and launched into transvariable, each heading towards a different distant star.

Not long after the Seven's departure, pilot Ikari's heart began to show frequent signs of stress. The central authority quickly stepped in and forced pilot Ikari into a stasis pod to prolong his life. As Angel attacks continued to pound on humanity's defences, the assembly of the second generation of colony ships was already on its way. While construction time was halved due to existing infrastructure and better know-how, to many humans it was still far too slow.

The long lasting hysteria amongst the people led to strong demand on so-called generation ships, which were basically transport and passenger ships converted to run almost indefinitely. A significant amount of space would be devoted to hydroponic farms and other facilities designed to support multiple generations of life. The fact that the gravmag drive wouldn't work outside the system didn't matter, and neither did the fact that it would take centuries to reach a viable star. To many, booking a place in a generation ship was more affordable and accessible to the alternative of waiting in endless lines to catch a place on a colony ship. Thus, those who held little confidence in humanity's continued survival began to leave the Sol System in droves.

Many shook their heads as their friends and families left their homes. It was expected that many of those generation ships would never be able to reach their destination. If not due to breakdown of equipment or limited supply of power, nothing could be available at their destination. Only the largest generation ships were equipped with mining facilities, and they required skilled operators to convert raw materials into fuel and building materials. The rest simply didn't stand a chance in a system that did not contain an M-class planet.

Even while people abandoned their lives in the solar system, the vast majority of humanity stayed where they were and prayed to Lucifer to continue to protect them even after His emissary's inevitable demise. Willing children continued to sacrificed themselves before the _Angelslayer_, their parents hoping to appease the terrible spirit that resided within.

But it was all for naught. The 1731st Angel descended from the skies in the form of a vast blob of terror. As humanity's impressive arsenal tried to bombard the shape, the blob simply let the damage pass through its liquid body. When it landed upon the surface, its vicious slime rapidly ate away at the armoured plates that defended the levels below. Even layers of redirected magma formed no obstacle. The Angel sunk right past and landed in the central dogma. NERV, stunned by the Angel's rapid progress, hastened to pull pilot Ikari out of stasis, rapidly inducing his body with heat and shock. They boarded him onto a gravmag platform and immediately shoved him inside Unit-01's entry plug.

Still disoriented, pilot Ikari still managed to synchronize with his EVA. Seeing the black-orange blob moving for the giant crucified Lilith, the _Angelslayer_ raced past by, putting full power into her back-mounted gravmag drive. The sudden acceleration rocked pilot Ikari in his seats, the gravmag plating around his entry plug struggling to compensate for Unit-01's sudden movements.

After retrieving the Lucifer-blessed Lance of Longinus, the purple and green Evangelion turned to meet the upcoming shapeless mass and thrust her weapon straight into the centre of the shape.

A light brighter than anything else engulfed the room. The NERV personnel present in the chamber were temporarily blinded while their sensors scrambled.

When the soldiers recovered, they saw nothing but the Lance speared to the surface and the EVA hunched to the ground. Nothing else happened. The command centre frantically tried to re-establish connections with Unit-01, but not a single electronic component on her surface seemed to respond.

They feared the worst.

And when the entry plug was retracted, they saw the worst.

Lord Shinji Ikari, the Protector of Mankind and the First Champion of Lucifer, died heroically in battle on July 7, 2136.

Panic ensued. Mass riots erupted over the news of Lord Ikari's demise, bringing the already precarious daily life in the Sol System to a complete halt. Peacekeeping forces struggled to keep a lid on the vast waves of hysteria and destruction, but were unable to suppress all pockets of resistance. Everyone looked toward the central authority, waiting for anything that could save their doomed civilization.

Only two weeks after Lord Ikari's demise did the authorities reveal what they hid under their basement. The revelation of the principal reason why the Angels seemed so bent on attacking humanity had shocked humanity to the core. The anger amongst the population only seemed to increase as government officials waffled on the reason why they hadn't gotten rid of Adam and Lilith.

Just when the situation couldn't get worse, it did. The morning of August 8 started in chaos as essential authority officials were missing. The president, his cabinet, and many other highly placed officials were completely absent from their work and homes. Even more disturbing was the absence of the complete heads of army and navy command.

Only one week later did those who remained found out where their leaders went. Sensor outposts had detected a huge energy surge akin to a Weithoff drive discharge.

Their leaders had decided to abandon the ship while it was still sinking. The headless body of the central authority quickly stepped into gear and replaced their largely absent leaders. The new president quickly ordered information searches for any secret projects. A few of those classified reports were eventually leaked to the public.

One specific document revealed how humanity's leaders never even considered saving the total population of the Sol System. They were well aware of the dangers posed by the possession of the First and Second Angel, but they didn't know what to do with them. On one hand, they considered launching them into the sun. However, too many analysts predicted that the immortal beings would not be destroyed, but instead trigger an immense explosion in the sun or cause some other disastrous effect. Throwing the Angels deep into outer space was another alternative, but it was deemed that after their recovery by their brethren, Adam and Lilith would come back and take revenge.

Not wanting to risk a premature death, the leaders quietly began to plan their escape from the doomed system.

The prototype was just a test to see if their method of escape could work. The seven first generation colony ships were merely a distraction while massive resources had been allocated to the construction of a top secret 'mothership' of immense proportions. The _Lucifer Ambition_ was thrice as large as the first generation of colony ships, and bristled with weapons and armour. Unlike the regular colony ships, the _Ambition_ boasted fully operational production facilities and storage holds filled with raw materials and when emptied served as a hangar bay. The ship was heavily automated, only needing an active crew of thirty thousand to be fully operational, while providing life support for at least fifteen times as much. At the moment of her completion, most of the beds were empty, reserved for the offspring of her crew as it traversed through space to an unspecified star in the direction of galactic centre.

The remaining authority officials deliberated amongst themselves for weeks while rebel forces swept the Earth. Eager to stave off a complete descent into anarchy, the inexperienced president decided to throw the First and Second Angel into the sun and pray that it worked.

Everyone's gazes were affixed to their projection screens, watching two transport ships containing Adam and Lilith approach the sun from opposite sides. Nearby specialized observation drones sent footage back to Earth and its colonies. While the signals travelled through space in the speed of light, it still took minutes for the light to arrive on Earth and hours to arrive on Pluto.

The colonists on that dwarf planet were the last to witness their civilization's destruction.

As the viewers could see the white-hot shape of metal and flame that contained Adam plunge into the sun, they rejoiced. Even the First Angel and was no match to Lucifer's hellfire.

They didn't even had the time to blink as blackness engulfed from the sun at the speed of light, laying waste to all it came in contact with, including life.

The ball of black continued to expand even as it devoured a Earth. The colonies on Mars were the next to go, and the ball still continued to expand. The righteous fury of Adam blazed fierce as his ethereal will engulfed the Sol System.

Detecting even more humans fleeing from his might, Adam directed his power to expand until he enveloped every single sublight ship away from the Sol System.

Adam sensed that even more humans were escaping his wrath. But as powerful as he was, he was not omnipotent.

The barrier of black halted its advance but stayed in place.

He left the Earth and the rest of the Sol system to rot in darkness.

* * *

**End Notes:** The prologue sets the stage. Normally, I'm not a fan 'history book'-like chapters, and I could have chosen another opening. However, such a decision would present the wrong idea about the direction I tend to take in this fic. I find the peculiarities of this original world important enough to introduce the reader vision in a separate chapter before beginning with the actual story. The next chapter will start with the actual meat, but probably not the meat you'd expect. I'll also release a stellar chart by that time, once I figure out how I can make my graphics program do what I want it to do, darn memory hog.

If you have or haven't enjoyed reading this fic, please take a moment to press the green box below and leave a review behind to let me know what you think. Any comment helps, even short ones or negative ones. If there is something that really ticks you off, or you just feel the need to insult my writing, feel free to. So don't be afraid and take the time to review!

Thanks for reading my fic, and I hope you will return to enjoy my future work!


	2. Lucifer's Dawn

October 2, 2009

**IMPORTANT NOTE: **A new **map** is available for reference from this chapter you are interested, please go to my profile and look for the link of **Map 1 **for this story in the maps section.

**Author's Notes:** I finally established a vision for my story. It's not something deep and complex like some other masterpieces in Evangelion fanfiction. It's not something short and light. It's just a straight-up sci-fi in the tradition of many novels I have enjoyed over the past few years.

Unfortunately, my vision involves **a lot of OCs**. This is inevitable, even more so from _The Songs of the Fox_. At least one original character will eventually take over, but it will take some while for that to happen. For now, and for much of the future, the story will be carried out through the viewpoints of non-canon characters.

Anyone who read my Naruto story will be reassured I'm not a complete idiot in handling OCs. But a lot of people in the Evangelion section of this website will probably think otherwise. And they have reason for caution. I myself feel disgust every week whenever some newcomer publishes a fic about a self-insert with some overly cool name badassing and Mary Sue-ing in the entire story. Fanfic writers of a lesser dedication never learn proper characterization, since their entire experience is limited to established characters. Since I'm writing a fanfic myself, I will probably not be able to fight against most of my readers' prejudice. I will expect some complaints about the lack of canon characters in the first few chapters, and a lot of readers dropping off. That is inevitable. Still, to those who keep an open mind and find themselves interested in the story regardless of the temporary absence of canon characters, I will guarantee the plot will be worth your time.

* * *

_**Lucifer's Ambition**_

_Lucifer's Dawn_

* * *

There were times when commander Yamashiro wished he didn't took such a strong stance against Luke Perry's bullying back in the academy. Unlike most domineering bullies, Perry possessed not only a naturally ingratiating personality (in other words, an ass-kisser), but also an assuredly undeserved talent for study. Even before Perry officially graduated, he was already assured of place on one of the coveted independent long-range cruisers. It didn't take long for him to distinguish himself in numerous 'battles' against overmatched pirate corvettes and rise up the ranks as fast as a Weithoff drive on overburn. Each time Yamashiro received the latest fleet dispatch, he would always manage to find some citation about 'one of the rising stars of the Empire'.

Sending a distinct brain pulse, the flat holographic screen promptly displayed yet another action involving Perry. Sometimes Yamashiro swore that the fleet press bureau was deliberately promoting his former nemesis.

'_I'm so far behind his coattails that he probably doesn't even __remember me now.'_

Sighing, the 30-odd year old officer closed the screen with another pulse, and then swivelled around his chair to face his meagre bunk. As the commanding officer of a small and insignificant _Trilia-_class destroyer, it had taken extraordinary hard work, along with a small dash of luck to get this far in the first place. Yamashiro was never one for sticking his nose in books; he'd rather prefer a match of zero-g squash or plot tactics in virtual simulator games.

While there wasn't enough space to play sports, he still indulged himself in a match against the other anonymous players on the ship's network. Though the rulebook expressly forbid such conduct (lest an officer's loss to a lower-ranked crewmember be exposed), Yamashiro wasn't that much of a stickler for rules. In a ship as small as a hundred-and-sixty meters long with a crew complement of 90, the usual formality and fraternity rules on the _Bird_ were simply unsustainable in long-range missions.

The _MIN Ion Bird _was never designed for anything more than routine work. Routine in the navy meaning either fruitlessly chasing after pirates or smugglers, or participate in pointless formation exercises. The only real action the _Ion Bird _enjoyed in its forty-year tour was a brief border conflict within the Mauler against the Abbadons. With powerful cruisers and battleships grinding each other down with mass armament, the _Bird_ had played no significant role, and was filled with holes rather quickly. By the time its hull had been replaced and its critical parts repaired, the brief war was already over.

And thus it came to be that the _Bird _was eventually relegated to one of the most unpleasant duties in the Merihim Imperial Navy: keeping a watch on Terra.

Not that you could actually see Terra. Adam's Shadow enveloped the Sol System as an ever-present bubble of pure malevolent energy. Nothing went in or out, and the closer you travelled to the system, the more at risk you were at being caught by one of the many ethereal tendrils coiling over the surface of the sphere.

Luckily for Yamashiro's command, they were orbiting a small node system well away from the sphere's area of influence. Wual was a red dwarf, a weak one, and boasted only a couple of gas giants and a few pathetic planetoids. The only feature that made Wual a noted system in the Terran Wastes was that its sun possessed the node property.

Nodes were ill understood. After centuries of careful studies, nothing more had come to known about them except that only few stars seem to possess the remarkable property. Most didn't. Wether the stars were white, red, yellow, blue, giant or dwarf, it didn't matter. Neither did position, spin velocity, luminosity, or the planets orbiting around the star. While some speculative theories had been formed, as far as Yamashiro was concerned, the distribution of node systems was completely random. That meant that a sphere of space containing perhaps a hundred systems, only had one or two node systems on average.

Nodes were of vital importance in this era – transvar travel between two nodes was up to seventy times faster than travel between non-node systems. With the vastness of space, time was a crucial factor concerning the distances involved. Also, if there was territorial control over both ends of the corridor, node gates could be erected, accelerating travel up to fivefold, bringing a year-long journey down to a day.

Wual was deep within the Terran Wastes however, and in this badlands of far-flung isolated outposts and pirate coves, there was little to do but keep watch. Given that Wual was only a week's travel away from Terra if Sol was noded, transvar travel was notoriously unpredictable this close. Adam's Shadow affected little outside of its immediate area, but its many unknown properties were known to play havoc with transvar travel many light years beyond the Sol System. Even an adjustment of 0.1 degrees in heading could prove to be fatal if you ended up in the middle of an asteroid cloud instead of past its perimeter.

An alarm beep sounded overhead.

Groaning, Yamashiro turned away from his bed and faced his solid status screen to check if there was anything needing immediate attention.

'_Engines green. __Armour green. Generators green. Weithoff drive green. Ion drive green. Gravmag auxiliaries green. Life support green. Sensors.. green and yellow?'_

Curious, Yamashiro sent another brain pulse which his implants immediately converting it into an electronic signal, which the ship's wireless network immediately acknowledged as a communications request to the bridge. The central screen immediately switched to a frontal view of the small and sparse bridge. Space was at a premium on ships, especially small ones. The bridge itself was located deep within the front centre of the bullet-shaped vessel to afford adequate protection. The CIC was similarly placed somewhere further behind, smaller but no less well protected.

As soon as lieutenant-commander Misako Aoi turned her head to the camera, Yamashiro nodded to her salute and went straight to the point. "Situation, XO?"

Smiling wryly in the typical manner of those with Lucifer-blessed lineage, his XO calmly answered. "It's Dr. Felton, sir. He says this time it's serious."

'_Not again.'_

"Oh come on." Yamashiro groaned, slapping his palm against his eyes. "Do you really need me to put him into line?"

Though her face kept the same guarded military expression, Aoi always managed to hint amusement. "I don't even pretend to understand the science, sir, but judging by his level of excitement, it might be something genuine."

"And you need me because…?"

"Well," She paused, thinking over her words. Yamashiro always found Aoi's thoughtful expression rather cute, enhancing her attractiveness. With her exotic short-cropped purple-tinged hair and her modestly filled uniform, she wasn't transferred to a junk assignment like the _Ion Bird _for nothing. Yamashiro himself speculated that she had been having an 'intense' relationship with a certain admiral, and when things got foul she was sent away as far as possible. That would explain why she was suddenly transferred from a cosy staff position in the Admiralty to being the XO of an aging ship in the middle of nowhere. Descendants of the ancient Katsuragi line had a penchant for both pleasure and trouble.

'_Good thing I belong to the __Hyuuga lineage. People might think of us as boring, but at least we come with a competent and trusting reputation.'_

"The doctor wants us to…" Leaning closer, she lowered her voice and added, "Transition immediately towards the Sol System."

"What! Does he have a death wish!?" Travelling any closer towards Adam's Shadow risked incurring the Prime Angel's wrath. Everyone heard the stories: creeping insanity, cancerous growths, malfunctioning drives and even a complete breakdown of all life support, killing those who didn't had the prudence to wear containment suits.

Without waiting for another reply, Yamashiro immediately pulsed another link, showing a busy and excited face over a blinking sensor console.

"Ah, captain! I have picked up peculiar signals emanating from the Sol System!"

Before Yamashiro could utter another word, Felton already passed a command to his console, transferring its content to Yamashiro' display. Surprised, he broke off his rebuke and instead leaned closer to study the colourful graphs.

"What am I looking at, doctor?"

"Well sir, I presume you are familiar with the essentials of transvariable theory?"

The basic course on transvar theory had been a huge thorn on Yamashiro's side in his cadet days. That he barely passed at all was a monumental achievement. If there was one thing he was determined to do, it was trying to avoid anything involving transvar calculations. Since transvar theory was a vital part in controlling space vessels, in particular navigation, Yamashiro' lack of knowledge in the subject was perhaps one of the great impediments to his advancement in the ranks. All of which made him hate transvar even more.

"Some, doctor, I know some." He replied, opting for a neutral sounding answer.

The grey-haired man didn't took any notice of the captain's hesitation. "Well, as you know, one of the basic tenets of transvar theory is the Law of Dimensional Symmetry: areas with high concentration of positive mass will have a low concentration of negative mass. On the other hand, empty areas in positive space carry a tremendous amount of stable negative mass. This general rule of thumb holds in any place except a in a wide radius around the Galactic Centre, the boundary of which is called the Veil of Lucifer. Curiously, the only other area where negative mass is too turbulent to travel in transvar is the region around Adam's Shadow."

"Yes, yes, I know all the basic elementary school stuff." Even Yamashiro wasn't that stupid. "Can you get to the point?"

As usual, the doctor seem ruffled by the lack of attention, but he was a bright enough person to ignore such from those he thought to be lesser minds. "Well you see, captain, look at line 1 to 3 on the graph and compare those with 4 to 6."

Now clued, I finally recognized the representation of transvar vibrations in the three positive dimensions and the three negative dimensions. "As far as I'm concerned, this is just a regular oscillation pattern of any random direction of space. What's so notable about these observations?"

With that, the doctor grinned viciously. "For any other area of normal space it's regular. But…"

It didn't took too long to figure out what the scientist was insinuating. "The Sol System? But.. but that's preposterous! Are you certain the sensors aren't malfunctioning?"

"Of course captain! I wouldn't be certain about this fact if I didn't take the time to verify the soundness of your rather limited equipment."

"This.." Yamashiro was at a loss. "XO, do you confirm?"

Lt. commander Aoi moved towards the sensor console, and after taking a small sweep of the data, nodded. "He's using the starboard deep space sensors alright, faced almost directly towards the Sol System. The last maintenance run over that area was one month ago, so they should be running correctly. It's genuine, alright."

Almost speechless, Yamashiro could do nothing but stare at the innocent waving lines, aware of the significance behind their meaning.

"Captain!" Felton shouted, almost glee in excitement. "We have to head to Terra immediately!"

That brought him back. Despite the evidence in front of him, he was in no mood to charge recklessly towards what might be his death. "We will hold an emergency meeting in ten minutes. Miss Aoi, issue a call to wake all senior officers and inform them of the meeting."

With a curt murmur of acknowledgement, the female executive officer turned away to enact the orders. Before the spurned scientist could utter another word, Yamashiro waved away with his hands, closing the connection immediately.

'_Let Aoi deal with the__ civilian.'_

Although military vessels always carried their own crop of geeks, ships stationed in the Wual System were an exception to that rule. Since the time the Seven colony ships settled on their first planet and developed the facilities to reach into space once more, there had always been a fascination to go back to Terra. Terra was the home of humanity and the bastion of mankind. After the Exodus, they had lost almost everything. The only remains of their origin were the colony ships themselves, and the records and diaries left behind by the original crew.

Yamashiro had studied a few of those records, as have all in school. The works of Katsuragi the Great, Akagi the Wise and Ibuki the Passionate were pretty much unavoidable, since they were part of the official canon in the Neo-Genesis Evangelical Church.

Growing up in an apathetic orphanage, he was never pressed into religion as much as others. But even he sometimes dreamt of the time when humanity stood as one, where Terra prospered and its people took their first few steps to the stars. Though the Old Order Church considered the three women's logs as heresy for their lack of worship and veneration towards Lucifer and his Champion, even those stiff old farts had to admit the three women's contribution to the survival of mankind.

'_Survival… how different it was back then, when humanity stood united against a common foe.'_

The Angels were a mystery. Stored remains of both tissue samples and Evangelion units decayed rather rapidly after the colony ships carrying them entered transvar space. With the potential risks involved with what was about to happen in Terra, not one of the Seven ships pulled back into positive space in order to preserve the precious samples. It was a very hectic period, with both scientists and priests doing everything they can to preserve the valuable flesh. Even the sacrifice of a hundred babies on the _Merihim Centurion_ couldn't prevent their contingent of eight and ninth generation Evangelions to wither away into dust.

But even as humanity lost their only effective countermeasures against the Angels, the Great Enemy had never shown up ever since. The first century after the Exodus was particularly tense. When would the Angels return to finish the genocide of mankind? Even after the first century of settlement, the descendants of the crew of the _Merihim Centurion_ were still anticipating a new attack, and prepared their people to go to war. More emphasis was being placed on constructing weapons of war than on building schools and hospitals. The focus kept each of the Seven different colonies united, but at the cost of losing valuable knowledge and traditions. Electronic records and books were all that was left of the Old World, but as time drifted on and humanity grew further away, few were intelligent enough to understand the numerous references to lost technology and ancient customs.

Eventually, the lack of any evident danger pushed back the grip of fear on humanity and revealed their enterprising spirit. With the nascent home system of Lix Tetrax overcrowded, and with new technological advances in miniaturizing the Weithoff drive, the fledgling Merihim Empire expanded rapidly over the course of the next few hundred Terran years. Colonization efforts picked up rapidly as node systems were discovered and mapped, unleashing a new age of expansion.

But it wasn't until the Merihim encountered their lost brothers and sisters that their golden age came at an end.

The isolation of a relatively small population of humans in distant part of space over several centuries had caused new cultures to emerge. Unconsciously, one nation of humans expected the other nation of humans to think alike and behave the same. When it was evident that their new neighbours differed substantially, friction ensued. It wasn't long before most pushed aside the hypothetical threat of the Angels and started waged war amongst themselves. With only a limited amount of node systems in a wide region of space, conflicts sprung up quite rapidly.

None had more of a reason to conquer more territory than the Merihim Empire. Their territories were flanked by the Abbadons from spinward, and the Zagans in the counterspinward direction. Further rimwards were the Terran Wastes, which was fought for by practically every faction. And lastly, in the coreward direction was the dreaded Veil of Lucifer, a vast forbidden zone further into the Galactic Centre where negative space behaved oddly, making transvar travel impossible.

Yamashiro had to admit that out of all the seven factions, his were the most aggressive. While his people held no overwhelming hatred for any enemy the way the Abbadons and the Leviathans hated each other's guts, they were not above looking for a pretext to send their massive forces in to hammer the opposition away. The Merihim Imperial Navy was never about big guns, or impregnable defenses, or superior stealth and sensors. No, its advantage was and always had been their overwhelming numbers. It was all about numbers and attrition, and it had served the nation well for over three hundred years.

This made the news about Terra even more disturbing. Humanity had both regressed and progressed from its days since the Exodus, but Yamashiro knew without a doubt that for all the fancy technological improvements, they had made not a single major stride in the elusive origin and workings of the Angels. The Imperial Navy's favourite strategy (throwing countless numbers of units against their enemy) was an exercise in futility against the Angel's AT fields. If the collapse of the Shadow heralded a return of the Angels, then the Merihim Empire was in danger.

With the _Ion Bird_ at the forefront.

* * *

The conference room was small and square, its surrounding walls composed of dull composite metallic plating. The only furniture to note was a heavy oval table, made of the same sturdy metallic material as the walls. A dozen angular seats surrounding the table looked barely more comfortable. The only device visible in the room was a small holo projector bolted in the centre of the table. All in all, most uninitiated visitors had the impression of being in an interrogation room.

They were close to the truth. The rather plain and boring room was in actuality protected by a vast array of electronics, designed to shield the room from any eavesdroppers and assassins, while monitoring those present inside for any further foul play.

The chief executive and tactics officer Misako Aoi entered first, followed by lieutenant junior grade Cerce Terios of communications and sensors and Dr. Eric Felton. Lt. Suraja Maharadi of armament and security entered next, followed closely by the veteran engineering officer Lt. Bear Greyson. Only the quiet medical officer Dr. Norman Regis was absent, but that was usual.

While the lone scientist prepared the holo for the coming presentation, the other officers conferred amongst themselves. The mood was tense and gloomy, each – with the exception of Aoi – felt that the situation was way over their heads. The _Ion Bird_ was situated in one of the most desolate places in space, and thus was crewed by a colourful variety of non-achievers, minor delinquents and unfortunates who managed to gain the ire of the brass. The mere thought of taking action, let alone moving towards the Sol System, seemed an impossibility to their minds.

"Right, let's get on with this." A new voice announced and when the door shut, the captain took his seat in the central position beside Aoi. There was nothing of her usual bemusement on her expression now; Katsuragi's had a reputation for that as well.

Not a fan of rituals and formalities, Yamashiro skipped the usual official intonations and went straight to the point. "Dr. Felton, please fill the others in on your findings."

"Ah, as you wish, captain."

The civilian presented his findings as if he were giving a lecture to a class of undergraduates – complete with dramatics and flair. Yamashiro cringed inwardly at Felton's condescending manner as he attempted to re-explain basic transvar principles. Obviously, the doctor felt strong for a course of action, but he evidently didn't seem to regard his audience as adults, let alone soldiers.

"That's enough, doctor." Yamashiro interrupted as Felton was about to go in further why a 0.5 percent deviation in wave amplitude meant something or the other. The man glared, but stayed silent and obeyed. At least he didn't forget he was a guest on this ship. Yamashiro might have made plenty of mistakes over his career, but by Lucifer he wasn't going to ruin his first time in real command.

"Now, I assume all of us are familiar with the contingency plans? Specifically, the one concerning the event where the effects of Adam's Shadow is – temporarily or permanently – absent."

There was silence all over. While it was expected that everyone present was up to date with the plans, no one had seriously thought it would ever be put to use.

Ships stationed in the Wual System were there solely to monitor the Sol System, even if it was an extremely uneventful duty in practice. It used to be different. Entire fleets once waged war for control of this otherwise barren system, all in an attempt to have the front row seats to the spectacle that was Adam's Shadow. However, soon enough the numerous hazards became known, and suddenly officers were less hesitant to stay so close to Sol. Even the scientists, military and civilian, were less awed by the phenomenon now that centuries of study have revealed every last drop of data. Only the most crazy and desperate scientists volunteered nowadays, of which Felton was no exception.

"Sir," The young Lt. Terios started, blinking his wide blue eyes nervously. "As you know, I transferred to the _Ion Bird _only a few months ago. I did not… I mean, the contingency plans… I didn't read them."

The captain grimaced slowly. He forgot about Lt. Terios' sudden transfer. Normally, the _Ion Bird_ would refuel, refit, and exchange personnel once every two Terran years. It was usually at that moment of downtime where new personnel would be brought up to speed. Terios was an exception, arriving on the ship when a courier vessel passed by their system.

'_Whoever__ Terios pissed off must be really desperate to give him a bad time. Only eternal torture in heaven roasting on the pit of God must be worse than a year on this aging bird.'_

Passing a neural command to the ship's network, the holo flicked from one of Felton's graphs to a military instruction document.

"Well this is it, Mr. Terios. Plan B-3."

Terios stared at the small and squinting letters. Yamashiro let the young man gawk a bit more until he addressed everyone once more, quoting the text. "If on the occasion where passage to the Sol System would be deemed reasonably safe, all efforts must be expended on making due haste towards reaching the Sol System. Upon arrival at the edge of Sol's effective gravity well, the ship or ships in concern must reach Terra by in-system drive as fast as safely possible. After reaching a stable orbit around Terra, the maximum amount of shuttles crewed with the necessary and most qualified personnel must descend towards the Battlefield to begin and carry out Operation RR. The orbiting ship or ships must provide adequate protection and if necessary, repulse any other force or forces making an attempt of the same objectives as those lined out in Operation RR."

"What is Operation RR?"

Grimacing again, Yamashiro composed his thoughts for a moment before giving his reply. "In short, it describes a short plan on the retrieval of all functional and non-functional assets and artefacts of the Angel War. Assuming it's still there on Terra, or that Terra still exists for that matter."

"But that's impossible! Is it?! Surely Adam must have destroyed our home system and—"

"Not quite so." Felton interrupted, as a professor might interrupt a misbehaving student. "Your statements are baseless, lieutenant Terios. If you would look to diagram three," Felton quickly switched the holo back to a graph displaying the familiar sets of waves. "The wavelength and intensity, in addition to the particular level of synchronisations, all these patterns clearly describe a noded star system at the approximate coordinates and direction of Sol. Now, unless Alpha Centauri suddenly turned into a node, I am almost absolutely certain that one: the negative space disruptions in and around the Sol System have been cleared, and two: the Sol System is almost certainly a node system."

"Sol…" Terios trailed off, almost unable to imagine that the home of humanity be freed from the seemingly eternal clutches of the First Angel. Ages of inactivity fed complacency to those stationed near Sol. The odds of Adam's Shadow ever disappearing seemed smaller than the odds that every star would go supernova at the same time.

Seeing everyone staring at each other in indecision, Yamashiro knew he had to take charge. "Whatever the definite conclusions of Dr. Felton's findings, our orders are clear on this instance: we plunge straight towards the Sol System and only stop and turn back if further refinements of the data signify that travelling further on would comprise a high threat towards this ship."

He didn't mention the fact that if the reality was so far off from a single scientist's predictions that the ship would get lost forever.

"But why travel immediately?" Terios asked, fear evident in his eyes. "Can't we wait a day until we observed more data and make a more informed decision?"

Before the captain had the chance to reply, Greyson elbowed Terios firm against the side, cutting off the young man's train of thought. "You idiot, you don't think we're the only ones who have noticed the changes in Sol?"

"Mr. Greyson is correct." Felton confirmed, gleaming at another opportunity to display his knowledge. "Any system within 0.99 TVC of Terra would notice the calming in negative space immediately, irrespective of distance within the limit. This includes the node system Centus and Saris."

"Which means any other star nation hiding in those systems will notice the changes in Sol as well." Yamashiro said, taking over. "We know the Orias have a listening post in Centus, which is one day nearer to Terra than Wual. Assuming they have detected the changes in negative space as fast as we have, they might already orbit Terra by the time we arrive at the edge of the system. We have to push the limits of our ships and go far beyond the official safeguards." Turning to Greyson, he asked, "What's our possibilties, Bear?"

Of all the personnel under his command, Yamashiro was closest to Greyson. Middle-aged, balding and a hell of a problem drinker, Greyson was nonetheless competent in his job when he wanted to be, which usually meant he had to like the person he was receiving his orders. Luckily, Yamashiro had learned this little fact from Greyson's previous commander, which enabled him to earn Bear's trust over a few months of hard drinking and equally hard hangovers.

"Squeezing enough juice out of the ol' _Bird_ in order to cut its travel time by a day? Of course it's possible. This ol' lady has seen a lot, but all its critical components have been maintained in good order, so the risks are manageable.."

"How far would we be pushing the ship?"

"Well…" Greyson paused only for a quarter of a minute before resuming, "We'd shorten the _Bird_'s operational lifespan from a few decades to a few months if you really want to be drastic, that's for sure."

"A few months!" Almost everyone gasped. Ships leaving the production line today were expected to last a hundred years, barring any critical damage. Above that, the ship needed a safe margin of error in the event the ship would enter combat. If the ship managed to get away from the Sol System, they'd have to travel at least for a month in deep space before reaching the nearest Imperial world. Having a critical breakdown during transvar travel was a good way to spill over into negative space and die.

"I know what you're thinkin'," Bear continued with a predatory smile. "But I'm certain the ol' lady can handle it. Sure, it'll be rattling throughout both journeys, and we'd certainly see a few systems overload or collapse with the added strain. Not sure we'd see something vital like weapons or active shielding malfunction, though. But the _Trilia_-class was designed for speed, and everyone knows the safeguard limits are rather on the conservative side."

'_Conservative, yes, but they're conservative for a reason.'_

Everyone knew the implications. Either they risk the integrity of their ship in order to reach the rich pickings of a lost and forgotten planet, or find a way or excuse to muddle along.

The idea of trudging along was tempting, attractive even. After all, how could a single and almost obsolete destroyer compete against whatever array of forces being deployed to race towards Terra at this very moment?

'_W__hatever might be said about the Ion Bird's enlisted personnel, her senior officers were not weak-willed or craven. They would hold, although if presented with a situation where they might actually engage the enemy, well, that was another case altogether.'_

"As soon as you get back to engines, prepare to redline the Weithoff drive all the way. Overburn it all the way if you have to. And when we arrive at Sol, prepare to push the limits of the ion drive as well. And what the heaven, we might as well wear out the gravmag nodes on our hull to gain an extra inch of speed."

"Aye aye, capt'n."

"Now, on to our next order of business. We'll have to hash out a more detailed plan of our insertion mission in Terra. Obviously, we probably won't have enough time to pick up everything on the Admiralty's wish list."

Maharadi barked a small laugh before pitching in, "Who cares about some ancient and decrepit computer system which bases its decisions on their creator's split personality. We don't need to waste time to rummage through the deepest bowels of the Citadel for something as useless as that."

Nodding, Aoi added, "We only really need the top three on the list. The Lance, the Champion and the Beast."

At the mention of the Gifts, everyone made the sign in a prayer to Lucifer. Each of the Gifts of Lucifer was a blessing towards humanity, allowing them to rise against the tyranny of God. Every human alive today was to be grateful for Lucifer's intervention.

After the brief moment of silence, Yamashiro ordered the holo screen to change to a map of Ancient Japan. "As far as we can gather from the latest records sent into space by EM signals, the body of the Champion should still be inside the sarcophagus placed inside the Supreme Temple of Lucifer located in a city called 'Tokyo-5'. It would take only a single shuttle to recover the body. However, both the Beast and the Lance is deep underground inside the Citadel. Retrieving both is going to be a problem, especially considering the original plan applied to cruisers."

Smirking, Aoi remarked, "Perhaps it's not necessary to stay in orbit. If we can catch the Orias or other factions off-guard, we can make a big hole in the Citadel and use our gravmag nodes to lift and clamp both the Lance and the Beast against the bottom off our hull."

"That's crazy! What if any hole we make destroy the artefacts as well?! And if we don't hold orbit, we'd be sitting ducks to anyone who would!"

The bickering continued throughout the hour. More suggestions were made, but were quickly shot down by others. Eventually a consensus was reached. If there were no enemies present when they arrived at Terra, they'd descend into the atmosphere (assuming it was still there) and make a smash and grab. If the Orias had already arrived, any attempt on descending to the surface was hopeless. Instead, they'd focus all their efforts in denying the other factions possession of any important relics.

Even expending their modest complement of nukes to turn Ancient Japan into a wasteland. They'd be damned in history if they did, but the thought of handing over the Beast to one of their bitter rivals was a prospect none would ever want to face. Their dominance in space would end, and they would all suffer under Orias tyranny.

'_May Lucifer bless our ventures, or damn our souls to heaven if we ever have to destroy his creations.'_

* * *

Like a bird taking flight, the _Ion Bird _quickly left the orbit of the tertiary planet and boosted her sublight drive towards the edge of the system. As soon as Wual's gravity well was beyond them, the old but reliable destroyer plunged into a phased state of both positive and negative space. The ship assumed properties of both, but did not exist as a solid object in either plane. The notion of time and space warped into something different, something vague and ethereal. If the _Bird _had any windows, which it certainly did not, anyone looking outside would see a twisted charnel of varying hues of grey. Of course, anyone taking even a single glimpse with their own eyes would turn mad in an instant. It was believed that the human mind and body couldn't handle the stress of processing negative space observations, even partially.

The Weithoff drive, or transvar drive, was a marvel of ingenuity. It was the only manner of faster-than-light travel known to mankind. Since its invention just before the Exodus, generations upon generations of scientists and engineers have improved upon the basic design. Inefficient components were replaced by simpler and less intensive ones. New architecture allowed exhausts of Black particles be recycled through a second sub-engine, delivering additional power. Other design innovations allowed the minimum size limit of the Weithoff field to become smaller, making smaller and more efficient FTL-capable vessels possible. No longer were the humongous city-sized colony ships needed to escape the speed of light. Swarms of smaller, nimbler, and more importantly, cheaper space ships made expansion into space an profitable venture.

But even after many eras of refinement, the nature of transvar travel was not fully understood. There was none of the simplicity in sublight space travel where action and reaction reigned supreme. There was none of the understanding and predictability of atmosphere flight. Why was transitioning into transvar in an area devoid of negative mass impossible? Why would a ship travelling in transvar be unable to collide with anything in positive space? What determined the velocity of a ship travelling in transvar?

Still, despite the huge gaps in knowledge, humanity could still rely on trial and error. If a new experimental design never reached its destination, it was assumed the project was a loss. Shoulders would shrug, but people would eventually focus on their next project, never minding about the unfortunate pioneers who risked their existence to supervise the project. Many lives have been lost to the Grey Sea, as negative space was called, and many more lives would be sacrificed before humanity would ultimately unlock the secrets of transvar and negative space.

Aoi spent her time hashing out contingency plans, sometimes in cooperation with Lt. Maharadi. She disliked the darker-skinned native of Pruflas. She didn't know whether it was the pungent smell of his idea of a deodorant, or the utter disregard in her attempts to tease out an embarrassing reaction. In her off time, she spent her time in the gym, or lurking anonymously in the ship's virtual reality game, or just hanging around in the back of the engine room where all the regular alcoholics met to concoct another homebrew. Not exactly according to regulations, but hey, at least she was keeping an eye on the rough and rowdy men and women.

Greyson was busy keeping the Weithoff drive running as he pushed its very limits. The stresses on the internal Black Field generators were his most pressing concern. If any one of the twelve would malfunction, Black particles could leak, turning the ship into Swiss cheese faster than the personnel would notice the sudden holes in their bodies. All his best (and worst) chiefs and mechanics were keeping an eye on each generator, shutting them down when necessary and performing emergency maintenance as fast as possible before turning on the switch. With no backup generator standing idle, there was no margin of error to take over the load of the overall Weithoff drive before the helmsman could redirect power. At least the captain allowed Greyson the rare privilege of control over the helm by neural command – the engineering officer promised he wouldn't drink during the expected six days of travel. Everyone heard the notorious stories about drunks with neural access to vital ship systems, and he was none to keen to risk doing something similarly stupid. Not that it meant it was easy being dry, though.

Maharadi had his hands full with organising the ground mission. After receiving the most detailed and up to date maps of Terra, he had begun drawing up an insertion plan that would make the retrieval of the three relics a quick affair. The _Ion Bird_ itself would descend into the atmosphere, release a shuttle on its way down, until it finally hovered over the Citadel, where it was suspected that the Beast and the Lance was buried deep beneath. The armament officer had discussed much with his chiefs and ensigns on the possibility to modify a set of warheads into a shaped charge that would blast enough armour and other protection, while leaving the lowest level intact. Since details of the level of protection was sketchy, especially after centuries of decay, they had opted for a modest estimate for the charge of their customized DTL missile, and hope to cut any remaining obstacles away with low-powered mazzers or weaker micro-N2 charges.

Terios was tense. As the ship travelled in transvar space, his primary job was to keep an eye on the sensor data of the ship's immediate surroundings. Such a critical task, especially since they were travelling through former negative space storms, was not to be relied upon by the ship's internal AI. The young lieutenant rotated the duty with two other ensigns, who could be relied on to stay awake. But even as he was off-duty, his mind just couldn't grasp the fact that they're heading straight towards Terra. What if Adam was just taking a break? What if Terra didn't exist anymore? What if.. mankind was not ready to return? The chasm between reality and nightmare was never so small, and he wasn't keen on finding out how much they overlapped in Terra.

Yamashiro read. He read about Terra's history, both before and after Second Impact. He reread the accounts of Katsuragi the Great and her descendants. He re-re-re-re-re-reread the accounts of his own great ancestor and his indecipherable ranting. He pulled an ancient record from the ship's database detailing the life of one of the current Emperor's ancestors, the uncle of the Champion, known simply as the Teacher. All in an attempt to gain a decent image of living and working on Terra, of the ancient dangers posed to humanity at that time, and of the structure of the city of Tokyo-5. Since he was planning to lead the ground expedition to the Supreme Temple of Lucifer himself, he needed to know everything there was to know about Terra.

Normally, an officer specialized in security or ground assault would lead or accompany a ground force. But Maharadi's expertise in ship armament was vital in insuring the recovery of the other two artefacts went smoothly. Besides, Yamashiro was confident his Number One would be able to direct her command effectively, as she had been a command track officer like himself. He had given the lieutenant-commander several duties in the past few months to test her judgment, and she had passed most of them, despite being a bit loose on rules and regulations. But he could rely on her to make the right choices when the time came.

'_Including nuking__, stringing, mazzing, or Blacking Tokyo-5 and the Citadel if they're forced to retreat.'_

In addition to his intense study, the captain regularly stepped outside his office cabin to tour around the ship, inspecting both his officers and the rabble of grumbling men and women that comprised the bulk of the ship's complement. It wasn't that serving in Wual was a punishment duty of sorts. It was just that the sane and the promising personnel always managed to gain a transfer or retire early. Those left on the ship were those with a variety of backgrounds; criminal, disliked by the brass, psychological problems, and a myriad of other odd cases.

But never completely incompetent. Yamashiro was lucky to have inherited a ship where the truly dumb and lazy personnel were taken care with. He normally didn't condone bullying on any ship, but in a situation where they would be isolated for two years, it was critical that the crew knew what to do when the time came. So, like many other commanding officers, he turned a blind eye towards the practice where the crew could be unreasonably rough until the individual in question either shaped up, or left with a broken bone.

'_As long as the ship doesn't fall apart, the crew can do Lucifer-damned near anything.'_

The massively overloaded Weithoff engine started sputtering and coughing as they neared the dreaded holy system. Whether it was solely due to the overburn or the residue of Adam's Shadow is to be debated. What was as clear as anything though was that components and filters that should have lasted years, were being run through in a matter of days and weeks. The engineering crew would have their hands full replacing the most worn out components during the Ion Bird's sublight trip to Terra and back before engaging the Weithoff drive again.

Everyone felt the shudders. To those who were used to even older ship classes, it was nothing but a mild sneeze. But to those who had never served before on a suboptimal ship, it was terrifying. Each and every small shake felt like a world come apart. Many feared that the protective armoured shell that held the mystifying reality of transvar space at bay would crack and peel away. Others feared for the Weithoff engine itself. There weren't many tales of a ship moving for days on an extended overburn in the database, and the engineers had precious little forehand knowledge to ensure the drive kept working.

So when the ship finally lowered the amount of power to the drive, everyone sighed in relief. Their entry point was nearing, not visible in the depths of transvar space, but calculated from the data of the Weithoff drive's burn. Such guesses and estimates were generally reliable, but with the extended overburn and irregular maintenance, a wider than usual margin of error was needed, so they decided to aim for an exit point one hour's travel away from the proper minimum limit. None of the ship's complement was looking forward to colliding with the asteroids and other debris of the Kuiper Belt.

Their entry was spectacular. While transitioning into transvar space was relatively boring - a ship simply seemed to fade away into invisibility - an exit was an explosive lightshow of stray particles and radiation in a helical spiral as the Weithoff drive bled off excess energy and power into space. Reds, greens, purples; every spectrum of the rainbow was present and easily detectible. Unfortunately, it presented a neon light show to any enemy waiting to ambush. The cacaphony of light and radiation also served to blind the Ion Bird's sensors, leaving them blind for the better part of ten minutes.

Another unfortunate circumstance was the fact that re-entry into positive space always turned backwards. A regular method of travel which would make a ship move from A to B would face beyond B after their arrival. However, one of the befuddling quirks of transvar travel was that transitioning out of transvar would leave the ship facing the way they came, thus back towards A.

It was an infuriating property of transvar physics. Many system defences have gun platforms stationed near the most likely exit points, ready to blast any enemy that comes out of transvar with their sensors down and when they were still presenting their vulnerable engines towards the system. This caused hostile ships to detour to a nearby non-noded system, and travel from that system to their destination in an unusual angle of approach.

The Ion Bird had no time for such tricks. Detouring to Alpha Centauri before travelling to Sol would waste at least a day, which they could ill afford. Another factor was the fact that an ambush at the other end would be extremely unlikely. Even if the Orias had strained their drive to the limits, they would not be likely to guard the exit point from Wual. In-system travel would take far too long, while skirting around the edge of the Sol System would be difficult due to interference from the Kuiper Belt.

Still, as the blind period went by, the bridge was mixed with tension. The ship was in red state, defences up and all personnel at their stations. The dual powered reflective/absorption hull armour, an innovation stolen from the Leviathans, was in its kinetic absorption state, guarding against both stray asteroids and kinetic/explosive mines. Another fraction of power was redirected towards the active electromagnetic shielding barrier, which was capable of absorbing or glancing off both magnetically charged particle beams and rich metal asteroids. The Weithoff drive provided a further source of protection, its Black Field generators standing by to provide sudden spikes of Black particles to be shunted through specific gaps in the hull to repel incoming Black particles fired by an enemy vessel. A final line of defence was the ship's modest complement of gravmag nodes, capable of causing narrow sharp spikes of repelling gravity force in order to push kinetic missiles away, or at least soften the blow for the hull armour to absorb.

Yamashiro gripped the edge of his seat hard, hoping that neither man nor Angel were positioned close and had already launched missiles or some other nightmarish weapon. "Status, Mr. Terios?"

"Negative space seems clear of any distortions sir, although visuals and other sensors aren't resolving anything yet. Gravity indicators show no significant changes in the Sol System's mass. I'm cross-referencing the specific gravity data I'm registering right now to Dr. Felton's theoretical model of the current alignment of planets… done. All the planets seem to be where they are supposed to be, with the right amount of approximate mass."

That ruled out any surprises like a missing Jupiter or the Sun becoming a red giant. Reassured, the captain turned to his helmsman, "Mr. Perry, how's the ship handling? Anything unusual?"

"Well sir,.." The bearded gruff trailed off while he checked all the gauges. "The sensors indicate the ship is responding to my commands, but without visual confirmation outside, it might be a trick."

Myles Perry was a wild animal through and through. Put him in charge of a cargo hauler and he'd make it do barrel rolls and loops. What was always certain with Perry was that he had a tendency to show off in challenging situations. His frequent insubordination made his commanding officers churn, but many have also acknowledged that his wild confusing manoeuvres had occasionally saved some lives. It was the only reason why he wasn't sent packing, although a board of inquiry had once officially deemed his stunts overly risky and demoted his rating. In addition, he was transferred to the _Ion Bird_ as soon as the old ship came into maintenance. It was a logical choice by the brass; give him the most boring, isolated and uneventful station there was, so he wouldn't be able to do any damage.

As soon as he arrived, Perry and Yamashiro made an accommodation. As Yamashiro was a naturally hands-off kind of officer, he refrained from micro-managing Perry's every move. As long as Perry obeyed the few broad orders and course changes he actually received, it didn't matter to the captain whether the helmsman decided to go from A to B in a straight line or in a spiral. In other words, Yamashiro was implicitly relying on Perry's judgment and gave the unrestricted enlisted crewman a wide responsibility that was usually reserved to an officer.

"I think I'll test the side and front thrusters… see if we have enough leeway to manoeuvre in. I'd hate to do this blind, but it's better than moving into the maw of a waiting Angel."

That Perry answered with measured calm indicated the level of excitement and fear in not only him, but the entire crew. They were one of the first human beings to return to the Sol System, and who knew what they would face? With the sensors scrambled for a few more minutes, the crew depended on Perry to act on his intuition and avoid any hazards.

More stations reported their status as time ticked past. All indications pointed towards nothing unusual, as if they had arrived at any other unpopulated system. There was no radio traffic, nor any tight beam transmissions. Even in Wual there was a hidden automated observation post that pulsed frequently on the ship's sensors.

_´What I would give to have a Belial. At least those crystal heads never had to face isolation with their __transneural bonds.'_

"What's taking so long with the sensor readings? It should have cleared by now."

"Sorry sir!" Terios seemed flustered by the razor-sharp attention of the captain, and attempted to find a reason to explain. "It's just that.. I think it's because the overload of the Weithoff drive?"

"Hmm… that does make sense." Yamashiro had to begrudge the young lieutenant some talent, as the captain himself hadn't realized the cause on his own. "Still, it should not be any longer now, so pay attention. I want those readings yesterday."

"Aye aye, captain!"

The next three minutes seemed the longest in their lives. Blind in a lost, unknown system full of potential dangers was not a comfortable way to pass the time. Sweat poured from Terios' face as he desperately cycled through different frequencies.

Eventually, he lighted up in relief. "I-I think I got something, sir!"

"Report."

"It looks… normal. All the planets are there and in alignment. The sun is still there as well, and its luminosity has not affected. No Type Blue alert, no Black particle residue detected, no radiation alerts and no abnormal radio noise. Visuals indicate no other presence, but they could be hiding behind a planet or moon or beyond our sensor's visual resolution. There's… only a mild but strange fluctuation in negative space, I can't make heads or tails out of it, sir."

Restraining a sigh, Yamashiro pulsed a connection to the adjoining room. A holo appeared in front of him, showing Dr. Felton anxious in his seat. "Doctor, would you please join me at the bridge. There is an anomaly on the sensors that I would like you to explain."

"Finally, I get to do something!"

Before the energized scientist could speak some more, Yamashiro cut the link and connected to another one. Not soon after a holo of the interior of the CIC popped up.

"Sir?" Lt. Maharadi replied.

Passing a few more neural commands, Yamashiro turned to the holo. "What's your take on the situation?"

"With the way we've been pushing the engine?" The confident lieutenant smirked just a tiny bit. "If we haven't arrived first, I don't think we're too far behind the Orias or any other nation, sir." His eyes then hardened. "But we can't be sure of anything. Light from the opposite side of the system will take about ten hours to reach here, so we only know there's no one there ten hours ago. Until we reach closer to Terra, we're still dealing with some major time lag."

"And there's the Orias cloak to consider as well." Yamashiro grumbled. A mere decades old destroyer had none of the equipment and processing power necessary to penetrate active cloaking and most forms of passive cloaking. There was a good chance that even if the ship was next to them, they'd still wouldn't be able to detect it. "That's all, Mr. Maharadi. Return to your duties."

Before the connection closed, Yamashiro was already facing his XO. "Since it's unlikely that we will be facing an imminent attack, but could still encounter unknown hazards, I will be lowering the ship's state to orange."

"Orange, sir?" Aoi quirked, confused why the captain wouldn't stand down to yellow. Orange was practically the same as red as in the sense that all stations were manned. The only difference was that there was no damage control and no overstaffed stations. Instead, all off-shift personnel were ordered to take as much rest as possible, and would rotate into stations at the next watch. It was a measure ideal for long-range slugfests, sieges and hit-and-run assaults that could last for days.

"Although our sensors indicate there's nothing aiming at us," Yamashiro swept the virtual windows in front of them. "As far as I'm concerned, we're in a state of prolonged combat. There is no telling what the remnants of Adam's Shadow could flicker at us. I want the ship ready to take action immediately when something goes wrong."

There was only the slightest bit of pause before Aoi acknowledged the order. Yamashiro nodded and added, "I want to reach Terra fast, so prioritise power to the ion drive and the upper gravmag nodes. We'll conserve the bottom nodes for our operation in the atmosphere. Push all remaining power to the electromagnetic shield. Shift hull plating to reflective mode. Turn off all but one Black Field generator for maintenance."

"Afraid of light speed weaponry, sir?"

"If the Orias sneak up on us to attack, they'd use electromagnetic beams, particle beams or mazzers. Other weaponry takes too much time to reach us. Even if some cloaked ship takes note of our precautions, it will play into our hands anyway. Either the opposing captain chooses to fire beams anyway, which will only graze us. Or the captain could choose to fire kinetic weapons or Black particles from afar, giving us enough time to switch defences or dodge."

"And if the opposing captain decides to sneak in closer and fire kinetics anyway?"

"Well..." Turning to Terios, Yamashiro morbidly remarked, "Then I hope our sensors can pick him up before he gets _too_ close."

* * *

The coming hour was spent on edge. While Yamashiro was supposed to get some rest, he just couldn't withdraw from the situation at hand. New sensor data uncovered the full devastation wrought by Adam's Shadow. It had shocked the bridge crew to the core when the high-resolution images of Terra finally came into view. The seas were turned sickly yellow, the fauna had decayed into husks and dust, and all the structures on the planet were but mere piles of rubble and ruin. Just enough seemed recognizable, but no one was fooled by the tranquillity on the surface. Though the planet seemed utterly dead and at rest, no one was sure what nightmares of heaven were left behind.

It was tempting to just stare at the bizarre pictures Terios was taking.

The ruinous streets of a large metropolis.

A river that had been dried out.

Husky remains of clothes, raising the question of what had happened to the owners.

A coast in ebb – strange that the sea of LCL was affected by the tides.

A tall white obelisk standing defiant in a city of decaying marble.

A half-rusted bronze statue of a group of men raising a flag.

The broken-down remains of a giant circular arena, the city nothing more than a pile of rocks.

A long, thick wall running through hills and desert.

A trio of half-broken but still upright pyramids, unfazed by age.

The red ring of.. something orbiting around the Earth.

And the orb of pitch black that seemed to be the source of the ring.

'_The orb… what is it?'_

Yamashiro stood gripped with fear and fascination and he could see the streams of red flowing in and out of its shell. The sight was so unnatural, so beyond Yamashiro's experience, that he almost felt the urge to vomit at the sight. Quickly he pushed the image away, and focused his mind on his duty.

'_The mission, focus on the mission.'_

Through his neural link, he requested detailed pictures from the ruins of both Tokyo-5 and the Battlefield. Although the alignment of the planet was not optimal at the moment, the ship's computers could easily carry out visual corrections. Soon enough, he received a flood of raw images. Pockmarked streets, carcasses of buildings, remains of vehicles – both terrestrial and aerial, a wealth of data came through. Yamashiro gazed half wondrously and half critically at what must be the very first images taken from Terra since the Exodus.

'_These pictures must be worth billions of credits back home.'_

But he had work to do. Grudgingly, he called up an overhead tactical view of the city, and let the computer add digital markers on the overlay. Passable roads were highlighted, intact buildings were identified, and flat open spaces were located. Soon enough, he had a clear tactical picture of the terrain surrounding the Supreme Temple of Lucifer, more than enough to plan an insertion.

The temple itself was marvellous. Constructed out of huge blocks of basalt and other dark stones, the structure stood defiant against Adam's rage even after all these centuries. Raised on a hill, the square temple was flanked with stairs on all four sides, welcoming each and every human being in worship of Lucifer. A statue of the Lord of Hell himself stood on highest peak of the angular roof, the Lance in one hand, the other holding the shoulder of an indiscernible boy. Yamashiro recalled in one of his early history lessons that historians had argued and were still arguing about the identity of the boy. The most popular theory was that the boy was supposed to represent Lucifer's Champion. Others argued that the Champion was in his sixties by the time the temple was built. They put forward the suggestion that the boy was supposed to represent humanity in its whole; a free virtuous people in need of guidance against the wickedness of God and his terrible Angels.

Gorgeous the temple might be, there was one important hindrance. As far as his eyes could observe, the stairs and streets and the temple were packed with remains of clothes. Shirts, jeans, sweaters, blouses, shoes, boots and even underwear was visible. It even seemed a bit comical. The clothes were in a variety of styles, all outlandish and out-of-date in Yamashiro's eyes.

But it would be different when you actually had to step through those dried and decaying remains. He knew how much turmoil passing by carcass would create, and stepping over those clothes would be much of the same. The men he was taking with him were trained in ship security and boarding combat, hardly capable substitutes for real marines and ground pounders. At least they might be trusted to keep their composure. But would he, the captain, be able to stay sane in such a place of final moments?

BEEP!

Yamashiro almost shook out of his mind when he heard the emergency hail. Brushing a hand through his dark neat hair, he let out a deep breath before accepting the link.

"Sir, there's a situation." Aoi explained swiftly, here eyes evidently focused to the side. "A ship has been detected about 40 light-minutes away… it's right behind us, sir."

'_Behind! Impossible! Unless…'_

"We can only surmise that the unidentified vessel departed from Wual just after us." His XO continued while he was thinking over the implications. "Lt. Terias is trying to penetrate the radiation cloud… we should get some details about the bogey ver soon, sir."

"Alright, hang tight, I'll head up the bridge right away."

Yamashiro whipped up his coat from his seat and stormed to the corridor, then practically jogged to the bridge. Surprised crewmen hasted to push aside for the rushed captain to pass through the narrow flat corridors. Reaching the heavy manual hatch, he typed in his code, unlocking the turn wheel. He spun it firmly in a counter-clockwise direction until the heavy door finally turned on its hinges.

"Captain on deck."

Waving away his hand, Yamashiro indicated the bridge crew to keep their salutes to themselves and focus on their stations. He took his seat on the central raised platform and activated his link to the chair's systems by handprint and code. As soon as the chair gave the occupant full access to the ship, he immediately recalled the latest visuals of the ship behind him.

"What am I looking at, Mr. Terios?"

Fumbling with the controls, Terios eventually managed to overlay an infrared diagram on top of the vague and hazy greyscale picture.

"Son of a bitch." Yamashiro uttered, echoing the complete surprise of the crew. "Zagans."

"A-bombs." A tech muttered, but was glared to silence immediately by Aoi.

Of all the children of humanity, only one branch was held in universal contempt. The descendents of the _Zagan Abomination _were literally abominations. And why weren't they? The colony vessel's original human crew donated genetic material to be altered into new life forms capable of surviving on hostile alien planets. Seven new species had ultimately been created, all suited to a particular type of planet. Each had a mouth, a pair of eyes and ears, and four limbs. But that was the extent of their similarities.

The Zagan Collective had been quickly established once the diverse societies on the seeded planets had 'evolved' to space travel. As each race still possessed a similar capacity for thought, each race was equal in status. Not much was known about Zagan governance in the Merihim Empire, but Yamashiro had heard that the Zagans did quite well. As he himself came from an environment where humans of the same race often waged war for the most idiotic of reasons, Yamashiro couldn't quite understand how such solidarity was possible between vastly different species.

The infrared image in front of him was a case in point. The destroyer-analogue was a confusing mass of hardened carapace of some unknown, but incredibly tough biological substance. The overall colour of the ship wasn't visible, but he was sure that it was muted brown. The living ship was shaped like a cylindrical bullet with horizontal indentations to the port and starboard, like all single drive transvar capable ships. Cable-like ligaments, bright on the infrared, crossed over the ship's surface, fulfilling some unknown purpose. Her stern, which currently faced towards the _Ion Bird, _was roughly spherical with its rough surface penetrated by several large holes. Some were inevitably gun ports, but most were probably engine exhausts. He knew there were more gun ports facing the sides and stern, with perhaps some larger single cannons on the bow.

"This is an unpleasant surprise." Shaking his head, Yamashiro continued to stare at the image as more information was overlaid on the screen. "We should have known there was something hiding with us in Wual. They must have inserted well outside of Wual some time ago and arrived in the system by sublight drive. They probably hid their heat signatures behind some rock or planet. Clever, if a bit time consuming."

As the ship transitioned out of transvar space, its front was facing the wrong side. Slowly the bridge crew could see that the ship was turning around its horizontal axis to face its menacing looking bow to the centre of the system. Sleek, dagger-like, and very capable of piercing layers of composite armour if the ship were to gain enough velocity to ram. Of course, such situations almost never happened due to the distances involved in regular space duels, where long-range sniping and stalking was much more common.

"We simply can't detect biomaterial as well as metal composites, not with our current sensor suite, sir." Aoi admitted. She switched her personal screen to a tactical view of the system. "Still, we're in a problematic situation. They're well positioned and timed for a stern chase. If we try to change heading, they can cut corners, bringing them dangerously closer. If we arrive at Terra and decide to orbit it or descend on its surface, we'd be sitting ducks. The only way to avoid combat is to travel in a straight line to the other side of the system, denying us any time to the recovery of the relics."

"Although we could bomb the planet while we're passing by, at least." She added in an afterthought.

Yamashiro grumbled, seething in his mind. How could he have overlooked the Zagan ship? It must have spent months inside the system, spying on their every move, analyzing their every feature and detail. They must know everything about his ship, every weakness to exploit, while he knew almost nothing about their bizarre bioships, let alone the specific class of the destroyer-analogue chasing behind.

"We could also choose to engage, sir." Terios added apprehensively.

Both Yamashiro and Aoi shook their heads. "We don't have a good margin for victory. There wouldn't be any point to risk it." The captain explained. "A single-ship duel under equal circumstances will often lead to a slugging contest: demolish the other ship before they demolish you. Even if we attain a lucky hit and overload their bioreactor or whatever they use, we'd be left with so much critical damage that the next ship to arrive can pick us off easily. But since the Zagan ship must have spied on our ship for what must be an extended time, they're the ones who are more likely to score a critical hit than us."

Terios was flabbergasted. "That's it then? You're not even attempting a fight? We're just going to give up and bomb Lucifer's treasures and go down in history as the doom of mankind? I don't want to burn in heaven on God's roasting pit, sir!"

"You're out of line, lieutenant!" Aoi strode over and grasped the collar of Terios' uniform. Hauling him up with surprising strength, she pulled over his head towards her face. "Listen, you're an officer of the Merihim Imperial Navy." Hissing, she squeezed the collar, constricting Terios a tiny bit.

Yamashiro was a bit horrified, but he wasn't completely against her actions. Besides, trying to stop Aoi was only going to get him choked by her as well.

"You are trained to face difficult situations in combat as well as make tough decisions. I don't care what kind of crap you learned in officer school, but out here you're part of the chain of command. You follow orders of those who are smarter, wiser, and less weak-hearted than you, get it?!"

"Y-Y-Yes, sir!"

As his XO threw Terios back, Yamashiro took the time to recover. "Perhaps it would be best if Mr. Terios will take the rest of the shift off."

No one argued with the choices made, or the arguments presented by lieutenant-commander Aoi. However, many faces still contained doubt. Yamashiro knew that if he didn't address this particular problem soon, his command might fall apart if the religious fundamentalists tried to stir opposition.

As Terios walked off, embarrassed and cowed, the crew tried to return to a semblance of normalcy, calling out specific marks or new details about the ship chasing behind them. Yamashiro was out of it, though. His mind was racing on the tiniest possibility of mutiny as in the case of the _MIN Torrential Fury_.

As the commanding officer of an ordinary destroyer in a desolate region of space, Yamashiro assumed he would never face the dilemma's posed in the academy. But he wasn't in an ordinary region of space. He was in Sol. His crew was in Sol. His destroyer stopped being normal the moment they left Wual. Instead of scaring off the occasional pirate looking for refuge, his ship was involved in an event that would definitely influence the course of humanity.

Nevermind that he had his orders for this situation. The _Torrential Fury _had her orders as well, but when in control by radicals, beliefs trumped logic. Some pre-designed plan by some pencil pusher up in the Admiralty wasn't going to give a damn to those who with strong ideas about the relics of Terra. Destroying any part of Lucifer's remaining relics was an anathema to many deep believers.

If Yamashiro was ever forced to order such an action be taken, he'd be sure to have at least a quarter of the crew up in hands. Although loyal Merihims the most of them, they still held themselves as humans. The recovery of the relics was of utmost importance to the devout. The faction who would manage to get the relics first and get away with them didn't matter. Even the Zagans, while technically non-human, were still considered to be the children of humans and for the most part, acted like humans as well. Everyone knew that if the Angels ever returned to wage a war of vengeance in the name of God, that the Zagans would commit their effort with the other six nations against their common enemy, and that those nations in turn embrace the Zagans as a natural ally.

Therefore, some of the crew wouldn't find it the least bit regretful if the Lance of the Beast fell into Zagan hands instead of being destroyed and lost forever. It was much preferable to the risk of incurring the very personal wrath of Lucifer. Everything was to benefit humanity in the war against the Angels. Human conflict and rivalry paled in comparison. Never mind that some odds existed that the Zagans would unlock the secrets of the relics, and use the new technology to crush the other six nations in the process. The Zagans hated being hated by the rest of humanity, but they made it plain that they never sought to eradicate any humans. Even Zagans weren't in the mood to test Lucifer's wrath.

Still, action needed to be taken to prevent such a possible event from even becoming remotely possible.

"Lieutenant-commander Aoi."

"Yes, sir?"

"Call for a meeting. The Zagans are still… at least 40 light-minutes away even at full acceleration, well beyond conventional long-range combat. If we receive any signal from them, we can rout the feed to the conference room. Barring any surprise attacks by the Orias, this ship won't be doing anything in the coming hour."

"Should we stand down to yellow state as well, sir?"

"The situation has gone worse, not better. The rapid arrival of the Zagans only proves that at least one other vessel hid in Wual. Who knows if the Abbadons or some other faction was present as well? They could have transitioned into transvar space before we did."

No one knew if there were more ships in the vicinity, and Yamashiro didn't feel like tempting fate by easing off the crew. The Sol System, despite its current calmness, was still a maze of hidden surprises. Just because Adam's Shadow has disappeared, didn't mean that Adam or Lilith were gone. And who knew what other dangers from other forces of nature were left behind?

* * *

Everyone arrived at the conference room as fast as possible. The senior bridge officers, comprising of Yamashiro, Aoi and Terios arrived at the same time. Maharadi from CIC arrived just a moment later, while Greyson took the longest to arrive. Dr. Regis entered quietly along the way, taking a seat at the far corner of the table.

Yamashiro immediately cut to the point. "Dr. Regis, I assume you have been following the latest developments?"

The older bearded man simply nodded and replied, "Yes, sir."

"Then you know that if our presence in this system becomes perilous, we might be forced to destroy the relics presumably resting on the surface of Terra?

"Yes, captain."

"I want to hear your thoughts, doctor."

Raising an eyebrow, Regis shrugged and answered, "Why would you want to hear my opinions, sir? I am just a medical officer."

"Not just a medical officer." Yamashiro remarked. "I've been hearing you're also the person to go to for any.. spiritual problems."

Ships sent for single long-range assignments usually had a church representative attached to them to provide services to the crew. However, there were a lot more ships than priests willing to serve on a warship. Smaller ship classes such as destroyers and frigates with a crew under a hundred usually had to do without such help and make do with whatever was available. Fortunately, there was always someone amongst the crew who was particularly devout, and many captains tacitly acknowledge such people as the unofficial tender of souls. As long as duty and religion didn't clash, the arrangement was beneficial.

"That is true, captain." Releasing a deep breath, Regis lifted his chin a little bit straighter. "My father had participated extensively in church activities, and I received a minor in theology in college. Although I am not the most devout man on this ship, I am perhaps the most knowledgeable one."

"That is fortunate, since we have need for spiritual guidance."

After explaining the difficult situation and the repercussions of following various orders, Regis leaned back on his cold metal chair and sighed heavily. "Some know how to follow orders. But others don't, and I expect that they will simply be unable to accept an order telling them to destroy the Gifts of Lucifer. If they abide by the Book of Ikari the Father, they might even attempt a mutiny—"

"A mutiny!" Aoi let out, surprised at even the suggestion of an insurrection.

"—Ahem, a mutiny yes, perhaps sacrificing their lives for the greater cause of mankind."

Taking charge before Aoi could interrupt again, Yamashiro pressed on. "So if I decide to order the strike in order to comply with my orders of denying other factions the possession of the relics, am I working against the cause of mankind?"

"Exactly, sir. In the eyes of certain pious men and women, there is a belief in the necessity of the unity of all of mankind. Ordinarily, that wouldn't play a large role in regular conflicts. Otherwise, they wouldn't join the Imperial Navy in the first place. But when it is about the survival of mankind as a whole in the war against the Angels, the dimensions shift. The Merihim, Orias and even the Zagans are all part of one side of the war. To the believers, it does not really matter if one faction manages to gain the upper hand over the others."

"The submission principle."

"Yes. As you know, in the Angel War, Ikari the Father had to wage war against the humans as well as the Angels. Those human conflicts had cost many lives, in addition to funds and war capability, culminating to the spectacular massacre of Unit-02. By wielding the Beast and the Champion to subjugate all opposition to his rule, he had gained the right to rule, regardless of his ruthlessness. Man needed to stand as one against the Angels. Internal conflict only served God and his Angels. People needed to submit under a single rule, no matter how cruel or petty that ruler may be. As long as those in charge are able to fulfil their basic function of guarding humanity against extinction, there is no justification for any action that would work against the war."

"But that was centuries ago." Aoi argued. "When all the people of Terra lived together in one tiny system, where the situation was more desperate with persistent Angel attacks. Ikari the Father's edicts applied to the time before the Exodus. It wouldn't make much sense to apply them again today."

"Does it?" Regis answered back, confident in his manner. "If we are about to destroy the relics, for the simple reason that we can not abide having them in possession of another branch of humanity, are we then not damaging humanity's war effort against the Angels?"

Aoi's eyes narrowed. "The Angel War is long over."

"The _First _Angel War is over. As you might recall, that war ended without resolution. The Angels had taken many lives, but disappeared. Why? We do not know. But are they beaten? Absolutely not. Who knows if they are biding their time, letting humans squabble amongst themselves before pouncing on them when they least expect it. If humanity somehow decides to destroy their only means of resisting the Angels, who are they to prevent such a fortuitous event?"

Shaking his head, Dr. Regis brought his message to a close. "We are humans first, and Merihims second. There are times when both sides of an argument must turn away and face a third side together, side by side. Some of the crew believe in this very strongly. Not many, but enough to be dearly missed."

"Is that a threat, doctor?" Aoi growled.

"Not a threat. Neither a warning. Simply a statement of fact."

"Then we're stuck." Yamashiro said, conceding the point.

While Regis' words might insinuate something undesirable, it was not enough to conclude anything definite, and whether the doctor would be personally involved. Yamashiro narrowed his eyes at the doctor.

'_I thought he was a boring, bookish sort, but it seems he's a lot more cunning than he looks. I have to keep a closer eye on him from now on.'_

"Then what are we suppose to do, sir?" Aoi asked in a voice gritted in steel. "If we return to the Empire while we let the Zagans or other nations get away with the relics in direct disobedience of our orders, what will happen to us, sir? Somehow, I don't think a board of inquiry will be very understanding of our situation, let alone the rest of the Empire."

Maharadi injected his own thoughts. "Perhaps we might try to offer combat to the Zagan ship, sir. If you can give me a few hours, I'm sure I can convert some of the warheads into mines. We can inject them in the asteroid belt between the terrestrial planets and the gaseous planets to hide their signature until the Zagans blunder right into the trap."

"Don't bother." Greyson replied. "It's the oldest trick in the book. If we set a course straight through the belt, the Zagans are going to be suspicious and travel over or under the belt. It might buy us some time, but it will waste much of our limited supply of missiles."

"Then at least attempt a battle, captain. If we return without blood, we'd pay."

"No." Yamashiro replied, slapping his palm firmly on the table. "I'm not going to offer token combat just so we could put a combat action in our records. I'm not going to imitate Rear Admiral Hellis, who engaged a vastly superior force in both numbers and mass in order to avoid looking like a coward. She lost over a quarter of her ships and men in that useless battle before judging the time was right for a retreat. If we do the same, who knows how much blood would be on our hands?"

Shaking his head, he fervently continued, "Even if we take reckless risks, a straight fight against the Zagan destroyer would only end up with both of us crippled before one of us finally blows up. We have almost nothing to gain, except a fleeting chance where we manage to blow up the Zagans early and have free rein on Terra, but I wouldn't count on that."

"And don't forget the Zagan vessel's evolutionary ability." Regis pitched in. "It is well known that the Zagan's sentient ships can incorporate biotechnological improvements and innovations through absorption or growth very easily. Every ship of the Zagan navy is fully equipped with the latest capabilities. Not a single of their ship classes are outdated or obsolete. Compared to that, the _Ion Bird_ only received limited upgrades over its long lifespan, certainly not enough to even the odds against a duel with the bioship."

"We can't just give up like this." Maharadi persisted. "The Sol System is a wealth of planets, moons and asteroids. If we can manage to lure the Zagans away from a straight course, we can lead them through ambushes and hazard courses. If they persist in reaching Terra, we can lay traps or harass them along the way. Maybe we'll see a new development along the way that might give us an advantage."

"We can't rely on lucky breaks." Yamashiro stated firmly. "We might run in a situation that may shake off our Zagan pursuer, but I would not count on it." He leaned back on his chair and softened his eyes. "The fact of the matter is that we have nothing but bad solutions. Duty calls for me to destroy the relics. Honour compels me to resist the Zagans. Logic tells me to give up on the relics if the Zagans are prepared to fight over them. And my heart? My heart leans to path with the least amount of bloodshed and misery."

Everyone was silent on that comment. 'Give up' was the message, even if it was in direct defiance of their orders. To let the Zagans bully their way into possession of the artefacts without a fight would bring utmost shame, and cause the Empire to become subordinate to their non-human neighbours.

"Human first, Merihim second." Terios echoed.

"Perhaps that's the key." Regis interjected, his eyes lighting up as a thought ran through his mind. "Who says we need to _fight_ over the relics? Why not propose to share?"

Raising a sceptical eyebrow, Aoi looked bewildered. "And do you seriously believe the Zagans will be content with only one relic when they can have it all?"

"Who says they are confident?" Regis posed. "What if they have the same doubts as us? So far, we've all been assuming that they're ready to fight over the same things we want. Not only might they think intimidating us is not going to work, they might not even want _all _the relics."

"Are you suggesting…" Aoi trailed off, her thoughts racing for a moment.

Yamashiro slammed his fist against the table to get everyone's attention. "We don't have to fight against each other at all! We're not officially at war, as far as I know, so it is not beyond reality to propose a cooperative effort in retrieving the relics on Terra. Besides, if a third faction comes along, the two of us stand a better chance against whatever the interloper might throw at us."

"One problem with that, sir." Greyson interjected. "There are three relics that matter the most. The rest is worthless in the event the Angels return. So how do we divide three objects among two? If we both want the same thing, how do we resolve that?"

"And how do we insure they're not going to stab us in the back?" Aoi finished.

"They're facing the same questions as ours." Dr. Regis mentioned, and swept his hands to the other occupants of the room. "They might look different from us, but they still have virtually the same thinking capacity as regular humans, including emotions and fears. I think they are more receptive to a temporary alliance than any one of you think."

Yamashiro leaned forward and sat up straight, spreading his hands on the table and stared at everyone present. "While our contingency plan does not discuss cooperative efforts, I personally think it is the best direction we can go. Whether or not the Zagans are amenable has to be determined. They have, after all, an advantage in both technology and information. If they're not planning to send a message to us, we'll send one ourselves."

"Now, we have to consider the following. If we could only get one of the three relics, which one will benefit the Merihim Empire the most?"

"The Beast." Lieutenant-commander Aoi growled.

"No, the Lance!" Maharadi retorted.

"Without the Champion, the Beast is useless." Greyson added. "However, anyone can use the Lance. Perhaps we can even replicate the Lance like they did in the past."

Regis shook his head. "But with the tissue samples of either the Beast or the Champion and our current level of biotechnology there is a possibility that we can recreate the Evangelions. Besides, both the Beast and the Champion are much more powerful symbols than the Lance."

Terios looked sceptical. Meekly he asked, "What do symbols matter against the Angels?"

"Oh, much more than you think."

The discussion turned to the merits of each individual relic. Each fact was presented, along with each officer's personal opinion about their supposed worth to the Empire. Everyone agreed that the Lance was the most readily accessible relic, and most likely the most preserved one as well. The Beast, if all its organic material hadn't rotted yet due to centuries of inactivity or from the influence of Adam's Shadow, might be a treasure trove on itself. Even if it wasn't possible for any Merihim citizen to bond with the Beast, there was still the possibility of unlocking the secrets of an Evangelion or cloning a usuable variant of an Evangelion.

Opinions divided heavily on the subject of the Champion himself.

"-but he's just a mortal in the end! Do you seriously expect to encounter more than a pile of bones and dust?!"

Regis sighed, brushed his face and answered, "Ibuki the Passionate supervised the design of the sarcophagus herself. It's not just a box of gold. There are many internal systems intending to preserve the Champion's body, and their power supply lasts for at least a thousand years if it hasn't been disturbed. Furthermore, the Champion's entire skin is embalmed with an invisible non-degradable polymer, and was designed to protect the body's integrity indefinitely."

"Right, right." Maharadi waved off. "Even if the Champion isn't reduced to bare molecules, what possible use does his body have, other than his partial Angel features?"

"It's not just his flesh and bones, or even his DNA. Even if there's only a single bone left, that bone is a _symbol_, a rallying cry for mankind. I admit that both the Lance and the Beast are powerful tangible weapons against the Angels, but in the greater aspect they are merely tools. The key has always been the Champion of Lucifer. The Lord of Hell himself has blessed Ikari's every being and soul to lead humanity to a new and greater age."

"The Champion's dead. Whatever blessings he had received in his life, I doubt it stuck in his corpse."

"His soul may have passed on to hell, but his spirit lives on in this world. Any nation who manages to gain the remains of the Champion must evidently be favoured by Lucifer."

"So what? A small morale boost isn't going to do anything if the Zagans or some other faction manages to assemble an army of Evangelions and demolishes our navy in return."

"Oh, do not be quite so certain about that." Regis replied, unfazed by Maharadi's insistent questioning. "If even Akagi the Wise was unable to unlock the secrets of the Beast, I would think no one can. Our medical technology may have progressed to a greater degree, but we have still been unable to make any advances into Angelic biology and metaphysics. Even the Lance has resisted duplication, whether by the conscious will of the Lance, or by the loss of a critical Angelic component used to manufacture the imitations that is now lost to us. Simply face it, without the Champion, everything else on Terra is useless."

The discussion petered out into philosophical and religious speculations. Eventually, Yamashiro decided he had heard plenty enough to make a decision. "Before I announce my decision, I would like to hear your own final opinion on which relic we should place the most priority upon."

"Definitely the Beast." Aoi announced first.

"The Lance, it's the counter to everything." Maharadi followed.

"The Beast." Greyson stated, firm in his choice.

"You know my opinion already." Regis said. "The Champion of course."

"Uhm…" Terios seemed to wither under all the attention diverted to him. "I don't know. I don't feel like someone like me is fit to decide on such a matter."

"You are right, Mr. Terios." Yamashiro replied, reassuring him. "This is a decision that should rightfully belong to the Emperor only." Cutting off any further rebuttals, he continued, "But, the Emperor is far away, and time is running out. As none of our standing orders, nor any of our contingency plans say anything about this, the decision rest upon the highest Imperial representative in this system."

Smiling almost sadly at his men, his voice softened. "By fate or by chance, I find myself almost unwittingly in a situation where my every decision and action will affect the course of the Empire and the lives of its citizens directly. I have heard your council, and I have weighed the arguments presented here carefully."

Leaning forward again, he grasped his hand together and looked firmly forward. "While I admit that trying to make predictions about our Zagan pursuers is chancy at best, nonetheless they may be receptive to an accommodation concerning the sharing of relics. If that is the case, then in the eventual negotiations that should ensue, we should endeavour to make an agreement that should concede to us one particular Gift of Lucifer that is left intact or salvageable on Terra."

"And which Gift do you intend to claim for the Empire?" Aoi asked, worry and excitement flecked in her steeling tone.

"I intend to claim the…"

* * *

**End Notes: **This ends the first real chapter of my story. Tell me what you think. Have I managed to keep your interest despite having no Shinji or Asuka? Or is this just an epic fail? As the originator of this story, I do not have a very good idea on how readers would react to this kind of story. Perhaps it is a bit too ambitious. Perhaps it is not. If you have the time to respond, please do. Whether your feedback is positive or negative, I welcome all of it. I have enough experience and a mature enough mind to absorb flames without agitating my ego, so feel free to unleash your raw emotions if you like. Or you could just say hi to support future updates of this fic. Anything is fine, so place a review!


	3. Lucifer's Decision

April 16, 2010  
By RahXephon [847246]

**Author's Notes:** I've been rolling many ideas in my head about this fic while I let it rest in the archives, and I think I have finally figured out what I want from this fic. Furthermore, I've fleshed out the politics, religion and culture as well, in addition to the roles of the former NGE cast and Asuka in particular. Just thinking about her role in this fic makes me laugh sadistically. Muahahahahaha!

* * *

_**Lucifer's Ambition**_

_Lucifer's Decision_

* * *

Lieutenant-commander Misako Aoi sat firm on the command chair in the centre of the cramped bridge. All around her specialists were keeping a diligent watch on the operation of the ship, their work supervised by diligent ensigns and a certain junior lieutenant. She was keeping an extra eye on young lieutenant Terios this watch. No one had any illusions that Terios' previous insubordination would go unpunished. Thinking about Terios and all the other crewmembers on the ship made her cringe in disgust.

'_No one on this ship has any sense of what they are doing.'_

In honesty, she didn't feel so strong about that anymore. Discipline was loose, and standards were lower. She doubted the ship could go toe-to-toe against any other destroyer. Back when she was an ensign and lieutenant, she had served on a host of tours on the most prestigious cruisers and battleships. Her close heritage and her extended family ensured she would have no problems in obtaining desirable stations. Upon her promotion to lieutenant-commander, one of her uncles forwarded her to a particularly influential vice-admiral, who took her on as a senior aide. The job lifted her future prospects immediately, since as the admiral's unofficial gatekeeper, many tried to incur favours to her to gain access to her patron.

The admiral was more than just a patron to Aoi, though. Middle-aged, unmarried and responsible for developing a small but crucial portion of the Empire's defence policy, the man needed to relieve some stress. As the descendant of a Katsuragi, Aoi knew which role she had to fulfil to humanity.

'_After all, Katsuragi the Great offered her own body to the Champion to bring him out of his depression and give him a reason to fight on. She had single-handedly saved all of mankind from a premature extinction.'_

So, as a Katsuragi, she dutifully flirted with her superior, sending obvious signals to him that she was more than just a subordinate. Like all men exposed to the seductions of a female Katsuragi, the admiral eventually relented, becoming more than just her superior. The affair was pleasant, she supposed. He looked after her and she looked after his dick. He used her body while she used his influence. Both benefited from each other's services, and both enjoyed each other's presence to a degree.

The whole base knew about their after-work sessions, of course. There had been a time once when intimate relationships between any active navy personnel were strictly forbidden. But thanks to the persistent influence of the Katsuragis and certain other families in the brass, the restriction was eventually lifted. Romantic relationships were allowed if the lovers were discrete. Any ties between those in the same chain of command was discouraged, but not forbidden in the books. The only real restriction were relationships concerning commissioned officers and enlisted personnel. If any of such would be revealed, both would be cashiered from the service immediately. It was an odd holdover from the times when humanity sailed the seas and worshipped a petty uncaring god who would eventually stab his own creation in the back. The same old-fashioned idea still held. Enlisted personnel were little more than savages, while the commissioned officers were the paragons of civilized gentry.

Not too different from the _Ion Bird_ actually, now that Aoi thought about it. Strange how mankind was still so inexorably tied to immorality.

There was another rule regarding intimate relationships. In the event of an argument between a superior officer and a subordinate, the superior was always right. Breakups and vengeful officers were the bane of the Katsuragis. Any sour ending would bring ruin to those young men and women who weren't highly ranked enough to stand up on his or her own.

'_Which was exactly what happened to me.'_

In her case, her ties to the family House helped prevent her from being outright discharged. Still, it was obvious that the time for prestigious assignments and comfy stations was over. With the admiral beginning to spread false rumours about her, it wouldn't be long before people hounded her out. So she needed a fast ticket out. Who would take her?

To be fair, it wasn't as if the navy was crowded. There were plenty of openings on space stations, defence platforms, maintenance facilities, tugboats, garrisons, listening posts, and other support facilities. However, fleeing there would send all the wrong messages.

'_You start in support, you retire from support, as my mother used to say when she was still in charge of a space dock herself.'_

If she wanted to nurture her career and become her own captain when her hair was still a vibrant shade of purple, she needed to serve on warships. The problem though was there were far too many officers jostling for such a position, and way too few stations to satisfy them all. The usual way to obtain one of those posts was to rely on family, or call in favours, or just blatant politicking. However, with her name and reputation tarnished, none of her seniors wanted to associate themselves with her. Even her family had limits, the few active serving admirals all out of system at many far-flung posts.

So she had to scour the database for the less desirable posts. Those were typically on ships that were either obsolete, known to function problematic or suffered from less-than-stellar leadership. Since she couldn't expect to be lucky, she had to narrow down her choices by choosing the right criteria.

'_Better an obsolete tin can tha__n a modern but shaking vessel helmed by a foul-mooded tyrant.'_

Surprisingly, the listings showed a peculiar unpopular ship that was nonetheless decently well maintained and showed no records of ill behaviour. The _Ion Bird _was just one of the many copies of the old but reliable _Trilia_-class. One of her old captains once served on a _Trilia_, and he had told her that in the right hands, the ship was tough as well as fast.

Curious, she looked closer into the _Ion Bird_'s file, and quickly found out why no one applied for the ship.

Wual. The ship was stationed in the Wual system, just a stone's throw away from Adam's Shadow.

The thought of taking part in the 2-year long renewable mission of observing the horrors of humanity's first home brought a chill to her spine. How could anyone take the fear and tension of being barely a grasp away from Adam's tendrils?

She dove more into the _Ion Bird_'s record. Besides being extensively damaged once in a brief fleet war, the ship reported no major failures or loss of capacity. She served most of her tour patrolling the Mauler, but ten years ago was chosen to patrol Wual instead. Besides fighting off a few adventurous pirates, the _Bird_ had a rather uneventful time.

The _Bird_'s personnel list was a bit more colourful however. Most of the crew had at least one bad mark on their records. The captain himself had been involved in a mutiny where – if the files weren't lying – a court-martial was unable to establish whether Yamashiro was on the side of the mutineers or the loyalists. Reading further into the mutiny, she quickly found out the very few public files were heavily redacted, none of the pieces able to form a single coherent story.

None of it made any sense. Before the mutiny, commander Yamashiro was known to be a typical Hyuuga descendant. His personal file contained many positive references, such as 'polite', 'hard-working', 'professional'. Besides the constant warnings of him being soft, Aoi decided she could not afford a better station for herself at that moment. So she decided to volunteer to replace the recently transferred executive officer of the _Bird_. The pencil pushers up in the Admiralty had no problem in dumping what they considered a liability to one of the furthest reaches of Imperial space. Her transfer was approved on that very same day.

When she first arrived on the _MIN Ion Bird_, she thought her life was over. The enlisted crew was far more shabbier than their files suggested, frequently getting into fights or engage in thieving supplies to gamble them away in the next second. Their engineering officer had what seemed to be a mid-life crisis, and tended to drown his sorrows away _while_ attempting to repair critical components. The medical officer was a religious nut who quietly preached his own loyal flock together, right under the captain's nose. The captain himself did not even bother to step outside his office or the bridge to see all the chaos that was happening in every dark corner of the ship. Her first impression was that he was some sort of master of Zen. Now she thought he was simply a coward who wouldn't do what was right.

When she confronted the captain after a week of her arrival, she was firmly rebuked.

"So do you think _you _can do a better job at reining in the cattle?" Yamashiro shot back.

"Sir, it is obvious that there are major discipline problems on this ship. As the executive officer and security officer, let me tighten the monitoring and bolster the security detail."

"To achieve what, exactly?"

"To turn this vessel into a proper navy ship, sir!"

The captain abruptly let out a deep breath, and shook his head. "Look around you. Look around the ship. Look at the system we are stationed in."

"Sir?" Aoi quirked, not knowing where the captain was headed.

"We're a bunch of misfits in the ass-end of space. Our present situation makes it _impossible_ for us to ever be a proper navy vessel. Do you understand?"

A slight pause. "…I do not."

A further pause followed as the captain suddenly looked more weary than even her own mother. She underestimated the burden he had been carrying.

"I _know_ about the fights, I _know _about the gambling, and I sure as hell _know_ all about the rutting going on in the cabins. As a Katsuragi, I'm sure you know such behaviour is inevitable in any long-range assignment."

Aoi bristled at the captain's crude remark on her extended family's… promiscuity. It didn't matter that every Katsuragi was taught to ignore such comments. It was still rude. "Sir, if I may, there is a difference between tolerating certain behaviour to promote efficiency, and letting delinquents get away with anything short of rape and murder."

The captain let out another sigh. "Lieutenant-commander Aoi, where have you previously served on?"

"Haven't you read my file already, sir?"

"I prefer having it come out of your own mouth."

She went quickly through her mind to recall the names. "Well sir, I first started on the _Terranoc Inquiry, _an _Augustus_-class heavy cruiser, then to the _Visceral Gear_, a _Tyrannus_-class battlecruiser. Then I served on the _Magnus_-class battleship the _Imperial Centurion_. After that…"

"Two more state-of-the-art battlecruisers before you were stationed to the Admiralty. Yes, yes, thanks to the courtesy of the House of Katsuragi." Yamashiro finished, cutting her off. "Have you ever stepped foot inside a ship class smaller than a cruiser?"

Grimacing, she shook her head. "No sir, but I have boarded civilian liners and fleet transports of the approximate tonnage."

"That's not the same. _This_ is not the same. Many officers regard ship duty on a tin can like the _Ion Bird_ to be dredging, boring, or even insignificant. But there are many more destroyers and frigates than there are cruisers and battleships. There are fifteen escort vessels to every three cruisers and one battleship. In fleet actions, tin cans might amount to little but an extra screen, but in every other situation, we serve a vital role."

"Are we serving a vital role out here, sir?"

"That is not certain." Yamashiro admitted. "Someone needs to stay in Wual, and unfortunately we are the ones carrying the stick this time around. At least we are freeing up another destroyer for a more vital task." He looked down at his enclosed hands, before looking back straight into Aoi's eyes. "I am not afraid to admit that we are in a difficult situation. We are months away to the nearest permanent base. We have no real-time communications. We do not even have the luxury of a sister ship keeping us company or to do a joint exercise with. There are only so many drills I can schedule to keep the men occupied and decently sharp. Most have to look to other ways to relieve their boredom."

Raising an eyebrow, Aoi frowned slightly. "Boredom, sir, is that your problem here?"

"Yes," The captain nodded. "Boredom is our greatest enemy. With very few pirates and no hostile forces encroaching on this system, we are not guarded against any emergencies. The crew isn't as alert as they should be on any normal navy vessel."

"Then why not push some steel in their spines, sir?"

"Because we _can't_. Because I _can't_. Because no one can. Unimportant tin cans flung to the furthest reaches of Imperial territory are like that, you know. This isn't the first time I served on a ship with a serious motivational problem. On that vessel, the newly arrived captain tried to bring his men in line with a heavy hand. Well, you probably read my file, so you know how that ended up."

"The files were incomplete regarding the.. event you're referring to." Aoi admitted.

"Yes.." Yamashiro smiled morbidly. "It was a bit more complicated than that."

"But sir," Aoi pressed on, a new insight dawning on her eyes. "Just because you had a bad or.. traumatic experience, that shouldn't mean you should overcompensate and let your crew run the ship under you."

She knew she was way out of line with her comment, but she would risk her hide in order to make the captain see under a different light.

"Lieutenant-commander Aoi, on this ship, _I_ am the captain, and _I _decide how I run my own ship. Your experiences in being a part of top-of-the-line battlecruisers and battleships with many hundreds or even thousands of crewmen is useless here. Forget most of what you learned about leadership and management in the academy. The real world is a lot muddier, especially on smaller ships."

A quiet washed over the room, the captain evidently finished, and Aoi waiting for whatever the captain would say next.

When he didn't reply, Aoi let out a hesitant, "So that's it? You just give up?"

"No." Yamashiro replied firmly, with a hidden strength within his voice. "Don't confuse inactivity for defeat. This ship may not look like much, inside and out, I admit that. But when I tell my crew to drop, they drop. When I tell my men to fight, they fight. Someone new and inexperienced like you wouldn't understand, but I am sure the longer you stay, the more you will catch on."

Tossing Aoi a final smile before he dismissed her, he said, "Life isn't so bad here once you know what you can and can't expect of the crew."

She left the captain's cabin in disbelief of his final words. How could anyone get anything done on this rusted tin without breaking a light? She threw in her duties as serious as she could. As the executive officer, she was pretty much in charge of all the smaller day-to-day handling, the sword held by the captain's arm. How could she do her job when that arm did nothing?

The first month was difficult and fraught with tension. She patrolled the ship aggressively, inspecting every maintenance log for any skimping on the job. The weapons department was especially fraught with misplaced ordnance or badly maintained components. She even almost tripped on a micro-N2 charge resting dangerously on the floor of the weapon's shop. Lt. Maharadi received the scolding of his life after that little incident, and she personally supervised him as he grudgingly cleaned up his department.

Her experience with the weapon's department taught her much about the dynamics of the ship. She started to see some of the realities hinted by the captain. Still, she thought she could impose some more of her standards to the crew. So she went through life-support with the same zeal, and after that on defences, then sensory and communications. The captain kept his distance, neither expressly giving his approval, but not willing – or bothering – to countermand her orders. She had a feeling that the captain was out to teach her a lesson, the hard way. She was equally determined to prove the navy way was the best for the ship.

Aoi knew that the moment she went away after a successful cleanup, the sections would revert back to their old messy states. That was why she toured all the sections of the ship at least once per shift. The grumbles started getting louder, but none had the spine to go directly against the steel-eyed woman. There were plenty of whispers about a certain 'sassy tight-ass Katsuragi' in the darkest corners of the ships though. Discussions on the fantasies on what the men would like to do to her became a new past time for the most foolhardy of delinquents.

Her first real wall was engineering. Bear Greyson was an out-of-luck lieutenant way too old for his rank. His very alcoholic breath confirmed why. The moment she entered the engine room and started to rattle off commands, Greyson immediately came out her side, grabbed her arm, and dragged her off to his office, against all regulations. She exploded, but a harsh fist against a table cut off her tirade. Greyson lifted up his full height and bore down on her, intimidating her into silence.

"I'm not going to argue with you, sir." He started, his voice deep but calm. "I would just suggest that before you rustle up this section, that you spend a few days on the side, and watch how we work. That is all I ask."

Suspecting the burly engineering officer to be more than capable of thwarting her plans, she reluctantly agreed, but not before giving him a few choice words.

Despite the insubordination and the crew's disdain for her presence, she stuck to engineering for a full five days. She watched and learned as the lieutenant bantered freely with his chiefs, the chiefs in turn talked freely to the rest. There were plenty of shouts, of whacking heads, and even a serious fight, which she intervened quite firmly. Still, despite the chaos and disorder, she could not help but notice one important thing that she had not seen on the ships she toured herself.

The men and women were all smiles. They enjoyed each other's company despite the cramped and limited confines. Everyone managed to get along with everyone else. If there was a fight or an argument, all of it would be forgotten the following day. Greyson himself was easygoing, preferring to stick his hands on to tools rather than pay attention to the performance of his men. When he wanted something done, he'd tell one of his chiefs, and turn the other way to get back at his own project. Whether the chief petty officers managed to finish their orders on time was not of Greyson's concern, but if one managed to be overdue, he could be a very angry person.

Aoi herself couldn't believe anyone could get anything done on this ship when she first arrived. Now she could see how things worked. Discipline and formality made way to friendship and expectations. Salutes were few and far in between, but it didn't matter in the end. Duty was not forgotten, and the crew knew how to handle themselves and their responsibilities. Each had their own comfortable way of working, and the officers gave a lot of latitude to their men to do their own business, as long as they did their jobs. Quality and diligence might be lacking, but at least the ship wasn't shaking apart.

She could never learn to prefer this style of control, but she could set aside her fears and her strict habits for a time. Still keeping to her daily schedule of patrolling the entire ship, she nevertheless loosened her standards and allowed some leeway. The mood around the ship instantly brightened, and no one looked at her with as much fear and dislike anymore. Instead, the eyes she met bore friendly expectations and comfortable familiarity. There were even the usual glimpses of lust and desire, which she easily toyed around with to keep the eager men on their feet. A Katsuragi used her assets to the fullest.

The _Ion Bird_ wasn't so bad at all, now that she was used to the local rules. Even the constant nearness to Adam's Shadow didn't bother her anymore. It wasn't as if the ship was parked next to the sphere. Sol was many light-years away, far enough so that even if its light was visible, it would only be a tiny speck in a very large expanse.

Content in her duty, she expected to remain with the bird for the rest of the year until she travelled back to resupply. Hopefully by then, her family would have smoothed enough ruffles for her to be reassigned to a more dignified station. She had learned much in her time on the _Bird_, but there was a time when a Katsuragi had to move on if she ever wanted to command her own vessel someday. Besides, she missed the tight discipline of _proper_ warships.

"One hour and ten minutes now." Terios announced, pulling her back from her thoughts and to the present situation at hand.

The _Bird _had last sent a hail to their Zagan pursuers over an hour ago. Depending on the speed of the bioship, the message would take roughly forty to fifty minutes to arrive, and the reply would take a similar amount of time to return to the _Bird_. It was a time-consuming wait, but an important one as well.

The moment the suggestion to negotiate a temporary alliance came from Dr. Regis' mouth, Aoi had to suppress the urge to knock the bastard unconscious. Yamashiro listened to the clever bastard with an eagerness that seemed wholly misplaced to her. Regis wasn't what Aoi would call an ass-kisser, but he hid his true motives well and always seemed to feed the right words to the right superiors. She herself could imagine why someone higher up would want to toss the doctor as far away from civilization as possible.

The meeting left a foul taste in her mouth. Yamashiro was just too damn insecure to meet the Zagan destroyer head-on.

'_If the captain would pay more attention to the ship and maintain it better, we might have stood a better chance at winning a battle.'_

Even if some parts of the ship were nearing their operational lifetime, she was certain that if she was in command, they'd do everything they could to deter or destroy the blasted foul Zagans. The crew had spent enough time sitting around, so they shouldn't complain if they would actually go into battle and risk their worthless lives.

'_Damn the captain and the doctor.'_

Yamashiro was so afraid more ships were hiding in the system, that he was determined to group up with another nation in order to deter those from harming his own ship. He was so determined to find a peaceful solution that they would actually risk trusting the Zagans. Even if the Zagans agreed, those A-bombs couldn't be trusted to keep their words. They were monsters, barely human, and couldn't be expected to give a damn to real humans. Aoi could imagine the _Bird _descending to the atmosphere to retrieve the relics, while the Zagans kept guard up in orbit. When the _Bird _was at its weakest, the Zagans would make their strike and cripple the ship in a single blow. It was a scenario that she all too much dreaded, and which had all too much chance to become reality.

'_Perhaps __it's time to canvas the crew, find out who is loyal to the Empire, and who is just another one of Regis' religious nuts.'_

Piety was weakening in the Empire, as humanity focused more on worldly matters than on some long ago war. More and more men and women were raised without having religion pressed upon them, reducing the influences of the Empire's two main churches. She herself, like all Katsuragis, were firmly non-religious and attested to the theories that the Angels were nothing more than aliens beyond humanity's understanding, and if God and Lucifer even existed, were simply part of the same alien race. The two's involvement on Terra and in the Angel War was probably a war of proxy, regarding humanity as nothing more than mere ants. Aoi liked to believe that was true, and all the conventional dogma with their unpleasant rituals nothing more than a human invention to keep control of the masses.

Unfortunately, the two powerful institutions regarded the change in sentiment as an underhanded attack from the Emperors themselves in order to wrest control from their organizations. Naturally, the churches fought back with a vengeful determination. The religious became more fanatic as the priests riled them on, preaching doom and damnation from the hand of God, and teaching their flock that their own salvation lay in the brotherly comforts of Lucifer. Logic and laws were nothing to them. Only Lucifer did. If they were in charge, everyone would either have to reaffirm their faith, or be sacrificed to appease Lucifer's temper.

She turned her command chair to observe each and every operator, checking their work on her own personal screen. When her little inspection was finished, she lifted from her chair and moved forward to announce the bridge. "I'll be inspecting the readiness of the other parts of the ship. Lt. Terios, you have the conn."

"I have the conn." Terios replied, his voice subdued.

Now, on to see what Regis what up to at this very moment.

* * *

Cerce Terios was afraid. Very afraid. He didn't reveal his inner terror to anyone, but he might as well not bother, from the way the others stared at him. There wasn't quite contempt in their eyes, but it was obvious that he had to work hard to regain their trust. Even Jermon and Alys, his two sensor operators, were keeping their distance. Unable to relax with anyone, he kept himself occupied by refining the scan data on the bioship.

It had been three hours now, which meant that a message back was at least one hour overdue. It could be that the ship never received Yamashiro's offer, but Terios highly doubted that. All Zagan ships were capable of receiving and transmitting radio waves, and their message was sent on all standard frequencies. No, it was much more likely that the Zagans were either taking the time to discuss the proposal or ignored it out of hand. Whatever was happening on the Zagan vessel, Terios wished they'd hurry along!

Sighing, he gave up trying to wish up a reply from the Zagans and went back to his own work, which was currently monitoring the sensors.

There was more to sensors than most captains thought what lay behind. No one could take say, 5 minutes, to scan the entire system and plot a neat holo with all the ships in the system. Most of the time, there was simply too much space junk, and it took either huge amounts of brute processing power or just meticulous sifting to get any useful information. Just receiving light, infrared or other radiation was just the start. The next step was to combine that data with the gravity sensors to put a mass behind the detected object, or at least an estimate of it. Then you confirmed your findings with the negative space sensors. There was an infinite amount of ways to interpret the incoming data, and without a substantial knowledge of physics, you might miss an asteroid just a stone's throw away from the ship. Sensors often meant the difference between detecting an enemy 5 hours away or 5 minutes away. But good equipment wasn't everything; it was the people working behind the consoles who do decide the outcomes.

Terios was good at sensors. Not as good as the naturally talented ones, those who could infer ship-class, materials, age, engine type, engine power, weapon slots, design architecture, power conduits and other sensitive information 5 light-hours away. But from the entire crop of sensors and communication officers, he'd like to think he was in the top twenty percent. He particularly excelled in transvar theory, allowing him to use and fine-tune the negative space sensors to a finer degree, possibly be able to detect large ships or space stations behind planets or suns. That ability to be just a bit better than anyone else in non-line of sight detection made him particularly desirable to those whose job was to chase out pirates from their hiding coves.

Barely a year or two ago, he was just a fresh-off-the-academy ensign. Pressed into the navy more by pressure than by choice, he had barely survived the antics of his fellow cadets with his dignity intact. Just when he thought that ship duty would be different, it turned out that there was hardly any difference. His first captain wasn't so bad, but his XO was a raging demon. 'Perfect discipline' was his motto, but by the brutal manner in which he smacked or hollered at someone for doing one tiny thing wrong, it did not seem that the burly executive officer held himself to the same standard.

He thought he could take it. And he did, for a while. But on one particular day, he just happened to pass by the armory and—

"Sir!" Alys shouted, her high-pitched voice rattling Terios from his thoughts. "I'm detecting a signal from the radio! It's.. on the primary diplomatic channel!"

'_The Zagans.'_ Terios thought as his heart bumped hard against his chest.

"Prepare the message on the main speakers. Send an alarm to the captain and the XO. Inform the CIC."

While the bridge went into a flurry, he took the time to display the telemetry of the incoming signal. In just a few seconds, he knew the exact coordinates at the time of transmission, as well as how long ago it was sent. He could see that the message was sent on narrow-band, with barely enough strength to be detectable over a range of one light-hour. Furthermore, he could tell from the noise in the signal that the transmitter wasn't very precise, spilling out into other frequencies.

That was to be expected of course from Zagan communication 'devices', or organs or whatever they used. What was important was to filter out the noise and garbage and leave out something understandable. Luckily, the computers were easily capable of doing such a routine task.

The XO was the first to arrive on the bridge. She huffed slightly from her run, but kept her back straight and her eyes intent. "The Zagans?"

"Yes, sir. The message is buffered to the main speaker."

"Well then Mr. Terios, playback the message if you will." Yamashiro said as he entered right behind.

The captain quickly finished buttoning up his dark red uniform while smoothing out his rough out-of-bed hair. Terios quickly hopped off the central command chair after giving the command to play, and went back to his own station while the captain took his seat and authorized his access.

The main forward screen switched from displaying tactical information on the Zagan vessel to the face of what must have been the Zagan commander, on what might be the bridge. The sight of the captain momentarily filled Terios with dread. He was tall, angular and covered with slime over his greyish carapace. Leathery wings protruded from his back, and at the commencement of the recording the imposing captain spread his wings to their full length. At least Terios wouldn't have to look at the creature's bare unmarked face. Apparently, not everyone on the Zagan vessel could breathe the same atmosphere. There had even been one recorded instance in the past where a bioship's interior was filled with fluid instead of gas. By the looks of the yellowish haze behind the alien captain however, it didn't seem that way. Definitely not eighty percent nitrogen and twenty percent oxygen, but at least he didn't have to face anything bizarre.

Since the transmission took an hour to travel to the _Bird_, there wasn't any point for the captain to greet the image. He did pause the recording, earning him some eyebrows from the crew.

The captain seemed to sense the confusion, and started to explain. "I find it helpful to analyze what we have so far before we plunge in. It is not as if we are short of time. First," Turning to Terios, Yamashiro's eyes darkened for a brief moment before assuming a professional façade. "Lt. Terios, please divulge what information you have gained so far about the Zagans and their transmission."

The nervous lieutenant immediately kicked back to his training, and started to explain his findings. "Extensive scans indicate that the Zagan vessel is a _Hoshax_-class, a destroyer-analogue. Our database contains a reasonable estimate of the ship's capabilities." Terios flicked a mental command, and several pieces of data started to scroll down the main screen. "Their main armaments are retractable plasma cannons and biological missiles. The plasma mounts are situated in a standard port and starboard configuration, while the missiles are launched through a pair of missile tubes in the bow."

"How do you compare her capabilities against our own ship?"

"The _Bird_ is well equipped to withstand particle weapons if she is fully configured to do so, but the Zagan's biomissiles will pass right through the electromagnetic shield and would either penetrate or burn through the hull armour if it is in reflective mode. While biomissiles are agile, they are relatively slow and can be repelled by focused gravmag concentrations or by shunting Black particles if we aren't overwhelmed. However, Past small-scale actions show that the ship may only attempt to put us on the defensive long enough to come into close range to ram us."

A shudder went through the bridge crew as they imagined being rammed. A ramming destroyer could easily penetrate the hull of another destroyer. What was worse was that the Zagans had perfected the art. The instance there was any opening, the bioship would secrete a multitude of biomass that would infiltrate the interior and begin to take over the ship and salvage everything in its path to fuel its growth. It was not a comforting image. Terios continued quickly to the nature of the incoming signal before he finished.

"So it seems the Zagans have taken a fair amount of time to discuss our proposal, it would seem." The captain murmured.

The XO didn't seem so convinced. "Or they might not find us worthy enough for an immediate reply."

Shrugging, Yamashiro continued on. "Enough about the ship. Let's begin with the transmission."

The sound of the Zagan commander's voice came out low and flat. It was obviously filtered out and enhanced, perhaps by the mask itself. Only the faint background noise was disconcerting. Every time something squished, Terios felt he wanted to heave.

"In the consciousness of the Collective, I greet the eminent captain Yamashiro of the _MIN Ion Bird_. My human name is Yerean. I am of the honoured tribe of the Corshuw, of the race of the Arshak, chosen by _Rwenaqur_ to guide her in her travels and lead her honoured crew."

Yerean continued with his introduction, tracing his lineage and laying out his accomplishments even though more than half he said was incomprehensible to Terios. The Zagan captain finally moved on to acknowledging his diplomatic authority before laying out his terms.

"We have consulted amongst ourselves and to the consciousness of _Rwenaqur_ on your unusual offer. We find ourselves agreeable with the spirit of the proposed arrangement. The Collective and the Empire are not at war with each other, and there is no reason to begin hostilities due to mere mistrust. While the Collective desires _all _the Gifts of Lucifer, we are aware that the Gifts belong to humanity as a whole and that we must shepherd them with care. In this respect, we accept your offer of a system-wide pact of non-aggression for the duration of a month. As there may be other predators in this Unholy system that might not be as selfless as you seem to be, we will also accept your offer of a system-wide alliance between the Zagan Collective and the Merihim Empire for the duration of a week."

Everyone in the bridge sighed in relief at the Zagan's acceptance of a temporary alliance. There was still a chance of betrayal, but at least there won't be any outright hostilities. As long as both their ship and the Zagan ship banded together, they could take on most of the probable scout forces on their way to, or already in the Sol System. Also, combined with the lingering threat of Adam's Shadow, their current predicament would ensure compliance on both sides, as it would give both crews a much greater chance of success and survival.

The Zagan in the transmission fluttered his wings. "Nevertheless, we do not find ourselves in complete agreement with regards to the division of the Gifts. We find ourselves in a difficult situation, as there are three Gifts but only two of us. In addition, your preference to which Gift you would prefer has come as a surprise. We have not expected that those outside the Collective would place so much symbolic value on Champion. Still, we reject your argument that as the Champion is materially worthless, and will not allow the Merihim Empire to claim a second Gift."

Shaking his head, Yamashiro commented, "It was worth a try at least."

"The Zagan Collective has little desire to acquire the Lance, but places equal value on both the Champion and the Beast. The Collective would not reject the Empire's claim to the Lance if it would not reject our claim the Champion and the Beast. You need nothing more than the Lance and its copies to defeat the Angels and the Evangelions. The Beast on the other hand does not move without its Champion, and separating them both will limit their utility. They MUST stay together. Our offer to the Empire is thus: give us the right to claim the Champion and the Beast, and we will forfeit any right to claim any other Gift, artefact or item resting in the Sol System. This includes the Lance of Longinus."

When the message ended, an uncomfortable silence fell amongst the bridge crew. The Zagans drove a hard bargain, intending to claim two Gifts for their own while leaving the rest of the pickings to the Empire. What was worse was that there was no guarantee that the Empire would have enough time to gather more remains than the Lance. Everyone knew the Empire did not maintain a strong presence in the Terran Wastes. The same could not be said for the other nations. It would take a single squadron to lock the Empire out of the Sol System for at least a month until the Imperial Navy could assemble a battle fleet. Even then, other nations would be ready as well with their own formidable fleets.

The silence was broken by a groan. Everyone looked in surprise at the pained captain. "It will take an endless amount of time to negotiate a compromise that will no doubt leave both our nations unsatisfied. Time that we do not have."

"We can just play along until they're vulnerable, sir." Aoi added. "It's not like the Zagans are considering the same, after all. If we make the first move, we might do the Empire a great service."

"I am aware of that option."

With only twelve hours remaining until they reached Terra, the bridge crew stayed quiet as the captain brooded to himself. Since there were no pressing matters, Aoi had retired to her quarters, much to Terios' relief. Still, he could feel the occasional glances Yamashiro sent his way. With the ship going deeper into the Sol System, it was his duty to identify threats any threats. The captain seemed particularly wary for any hidden Orias strike vessels. They would be completely blind against stealthed ships unless Terios and his subordinates can detect them first. It was a heavy burden, since the _Bird_'s sensor suite was as standard as it could be on a decades' old ship – inadequate. Sure, the software algorithms were tweaked and upgraded to consider modern countermeasures. However, without the matching modern hardware and other physical enhancements, most of the more cutting-edge stealth technology any enemy would employ was simply beyond the _Bird_'s capabilities.

Not that it was impossible to spot a sensor profile out in the vastness of space. With knowledge, intuition and luck, a gifted sensor operator could filter out a hidden ship from the mass of space garbage. The problem was just that there was too much junk in space. From island-sized meteors to pebbles the size of a fruit, the Sol system was littered with rocks. Scanning and cataloguing each one would take forever despite modern advancements in computer processing. It was up to Terios to select suspicious profiles and leave it to crewmen Jermon and Alys to do the grunt work.

Another problem was the relative speed of the ship to its surroundings. As long as they travelled under a low fraction of light speed, the warping of the outside world induced by relativity was controllable. If the ship accelerated to a higher fraction however, it was increasingly more difficult to sense objects around the ship accurately, especially if it was close. The half-way point of the journey was the portion where the ship's velocity would be at its greatest, and thus also at its most blinded state. Only the fact that other ships wouldn't be able to lock on accurately to the _Ion Bird_ due to the same relativistic effects made it safe enough to risk going so fast.

His captain's words immediately drew him back to the negotiation at hand.

"We cannot fight the Zagan vessel and expect us to leave victorious or in shape to fight off other vessels. We cannot accept their offer either."

"Then what have you in mind, sir?" Aoi asked, her eyes glinting more than a little suspicious at her superior officer. She added a warning remark. "The Empire doesn't give up."

"The Empire doesn't give up." Yamashiro confirmed, outwardly oblivious of Aoi's silent objection. "But we cannot do anything else but give something up."

The XO looked ready to burst, but the captain raised a single palm to forestall her protest. "Let me finish." When it looked like Aoi seemed more curious than indignant, he continued, "There are three items of supreme importance. We, hereby meaning the Merehim Empire and the Zagan Collective, number only two. The other nations number five in total. Regardless of how we divide the Gifts amongst ourselves, assuming we can get away with all three them, how do you think the Penemues, Belials, Orias, Leviathans and Abbadons are going to react?"

The answer was obvious.

"They're not going to allow us to keep the relics and would probably attack us relentlessly until they get their hands on them." Aoi concluded, her eyes wandering for a moment before narrowing into slits. "Sir, you're seriously not going to.."

An uncharacteristic smirk appeared on the captain's face. "Do you have any better ideas? At least with this outcome, we can secure both our short-term and long-term continuity. I may be just a destroyer captain, but at this very moment, the future of the Merihim Empire is in my hands. I am not about to lead them into the path of destruction." Yamashiro swivelled his chair. "Terios. Begin to record the following message."

"Yes, sir."

The entire fate of the human race shifted as soon as the transmission was sent and received.

* * *

Terra was dead. Merely gazing at the footage was enough to upset even the strongest stomachs. Many centuries of decay had taken its toll on the planet. Without plants, animals, insects or even bacteria, nothing grew and nothing rotted away. Things simply rusted into ruin or turned into dust. Many buildings and structures stayed intact, their resilience against the winds and the elements admirable. The fortress city of Tokyo-5 was clear of the usual mass destruction encountered in other besieged worlds. Only a few structures showed any signs of damage, probably caused by the anarchy in the final days leading up to Adam's Revenge. More disconcerting were the remains of clothes. No one knew why there weren't any human remains. Where were the bones? Where was the hair?

That and more questions were quietly being passed around in the _Ion Bird_'s only shuttle. Being a simple destroyer, there was no room for a proper shuttle bay. Instead, the miniature transport formed a direct part of the ship, and could be detached and attached directly from a slot on the rear part of the _Bird_. It wasn't pretty, but it saved a lot of space. Inside the shuttle, the captain and six crewmen trained in close combat and a shuttle pilot waited anxiously to depart. All but the pilot were strapped in tight against the sides. Their armoured bulk barely squeezed in their seats, but they managed.

Every crewman wore a navy-issue combat suit. It wasn't as protective and powerful as marine exoskeletons, but the suits required little training and even less time to become acquainted with them. The inch-thick fleximetallic exterior provided a basic amount of protection against thermal and explosive weaponry, though it didn't fare very well against concentrated kinetic attacks. The suit was partly fluid, especially at the joints, which made those spots the ideal spots to hit. The helmet was fully solid though, with only two tiny transparent slits to provide direct vision, and contained a multitude of filters and a heads-up display. There was a standard slot in the back of the suit, allowing a variety of loadouts to be equipped efficiently. Currently, three were configured as ground assault, one as scout, one as engineer and one as heavy weapons. Yamashiro himself carried the command suite, a full array of communications, jamming and tactical positioning hardware. He only had room for a pistol and a plasma knife, but he wasn't much of a fighter anyway.

"Sir," Jonas Duke, one of the crewman began, an oafish looking sort in Yamashiro's eyes. He was a typical brawlerish sort present in virtually any warship. Yamashiro half-expected Duke to relish the chance of getting his boots on the ground, but the large blond seemed cowed instead. "Is it true that the ring orbiting around Terra are the souls of the people killed by Adam?"

'How could I know?' The captain wanted to shoot back, but he knew such an answer would increase their uncertainty. If he didn't maintain a steady and confident exterior, his entire crew would shatter into an ineffective mob. He couldn't allow that to happen, especially to his ground crew.

"It's just some space dust. We're not going to come any close to them, so don't worry. Just focus on the mission on the ground. Have you memorized all the routes?"

"Um, I think I have.."

"Then list them." Yamashiro ordered, hoping to draw Duke's attention away from his fears. As Duke methodically rattled out street names, Yamashiro tried to contain his own impending fear.

'This is Terra. My ancestors' home world. What did Hyuuga once say about it? _"If I were an Angel, I'd seek something better than this shithole to invade"? _No, that was someone else.'

Looking for a distraction of his own, the captain neutrally called up a display of the solar system on his visor. Pictograms overlaid his vision, showing the positions of the planets around Sol. One dot representing the _Ion Bird_ was heading steadily closer towards Sol, even now decelerating furiously with its gravmag nodes in order to avoid shooting by the planet. Due to the distance, the deceleration was merely a few dozen gees. As they entered inside the moon's orbit, the braking would rapidly ramp up to a few hundreds of gees, towards the very limit of the inertial dampeners capacity to avoid squishing the crew into paste.

"Ms. Aoi." He spoke softly to his communicator. "Any signs of transvar entries yet?"

It took a moment before a reply came. "There have been no positive identifications as of yet. Terra is exuding some strange interference on our most sensitive sensors. It is difficult to identify even the high-energy signatures of a transvar entry in clear space, let alone behind a planet or moon. Sir."

"So the Orias or any other faction could have already entered into this system after us and we wouldn't know it?"

"That is correct, sir."

"What about the Zagan ship? How far away is it from reaching Terra?"

"They're about two hours away, assuming their modified trajectory plan. According to their latest transmissions, they're going to maintain an extreme orbit in order to save time and provide an advance warning for our operations."

"And be in a position to disable our ship, is what you're thinking, right?" Yamashiro guessed.

"You know my apprehensions about your plan, sir."

"I've made my decision. We're not going to argue about it again. We will just have to trust their good faith as they trust ours."

After Aoi signed off, Yamashiro spent the rest of the time going over the map of the city and the blueprints of the large square temple. He didn't know how much time they had before another power showed up, so he was determined to make a simple smash and grab. The coffin was made of an alloy of several high-grade metals along with a gold finish, but its weight wouldn't be a problem with a set of portable gravmag nodes. The only hindrance seemed to be the size of the sarcophagus. It was as long as his cabin bed, but twice as broad and thrice as high. He had to order Grayson to make room in the shuttle by tearing off two seats, reducing the amount of people he could bring to this operation.

His surroundings began to vibrate. Numerous equipment rattled against their bonds as the _Ion Bird_'s gravmag nodes were straining at their maximum to slow down the ship. Everyone tensed as they gripped their handlebars.

"Five minutes until launch!" Pilot Rina Sterling warned over the noise.

The shaking grew harsher, so much that everyone looked nauseated. Their cushioned seats barely absorbed the worst of the shakings.

"Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Four. Three. Two. One. Launch!"

With a quick thump with her fist, Sterling engaged the launch sequence. The protective sheath covering the shuttle shifted back, revealing the flyer to the outside world. As soon as the green lights flared, she pushed the throttle firmly up, activating the transport's powerful gravmag drive. The shuttle jumped away from the still-breaking destroyer and approached the planet ahead with a greater speed, overtaking its mothership. The pilot gently eased the throttle back until she reversed the thrust, bleeding off speed in order to avoid colliding head-on against the surface of the planet.

It took a good half-hour to enter the upper reaches of the atmosphere. When it did, the shuttle began to slow down from friction as well. The shuttle began to heat up, though none of the occupants noticed any difference due to their suits' temperature regulation systems. The trip downwards slowly eased as further momentum was being bled off. Only at the last few thousand meters did the shuttle stabilize under its own power.

Seeing that re-entry was successful, Yamashiro called up a regional map of the planet. The transport was well over a hundred kilometres away from Tokyo-5, and approached the fortress city from the east. He called up a different view screen, and his eyes came upon the sight of a sickly yellow ocean. The shuttle's sensors were working hard at deciphering the substance, but results were inconclusive so far. Whatever it was, it didn't match the tiny transport's database.

Another few minutes ticked by as the shuttle descended further and travelled supersonic over the waters. The gentle lapping of the waves was disturbed by the craft's passing. Gazing after the wake, Yamashiro wondered if there was any life down there that would frown upon their passing.

'Probably not. Every indicators say that the planet is dead.'

"We're nearing the metropolis."

The shuttle soon passed over the harbour district of humanity's fortress city. Though a fair distance away from the ruins of Tokyo-3 and the Battlefield, Tokyo-5 was the penultimate centre of human civilization. Besides being the seat of the old authority, it was a major base of research and operations of the newer generation Evangelions. If they had more time, then he could have recovered books or databanks. As it was, their presence was at too much risk. When the temple was in sight, the shuttle slowed its approach, hovering carefully over skyscrapers and antennas. The looming structure of the black temple grew rapidly larger as the shuttle descended in a clump of low-rise buildings.

"The garden looks clear enough to land." Sterling said. "The ground looks kind of soft so I'll hover over. Be careful when you step out."

The hatch suddenly popped open, letting large amounts of light flood in. The crewmen's visors quickly adjusted their sensitivity, letting them see the ruin of Tokyo-5 directly for the first time.

"Oh my..."

"No time to waste." Yamashiro said firmly, releasing his bonds and preparing to jump out. "We have a mission."

And with that, everyone released their straps and jumped out the hatch, landing on the soft dried-out soil. Yamashiro barely took note that he was the first human being in almost a millennium that stepped foot on the planet. The scout immediately crouched and went out ahead, turning a corner while the rest secured the perimeter. When it seemed nothing was about to ambush them, the captain ordered his troops to move ahead while he followed.

"No life at all. No heat signatures either."

Walking through the streets towards the temple was quiet, eerily so. Nothing moved. Nothing lived. Wrecks and remains were strewn all over the street, but nothing was there to grow over them. Most of the lighter remnants, such as clothes or trash were already blown away. Not nearly enough, though.

"What do you think had happened to these people?" His combat engineer mused.

"Shaddup Shank."

"Geez, I was just wondering. Are ya scared?"

"We're in the middle of Angel territory!"

"Quiet." Yamashiro cut in, and forcefully sent out a neural command that muted his men's microphones. "Enemies may be hiding somewhere. Keep your eyes and ears focused. We have a job to do."

"Yes sir."

None of his men besides Lt. Maharadi were experienced in ground warfare. With a crew that consisted entirely of the bad eggs of the navy, Yamashiro didn't have much to choose from. Unlike his officers, who seemed to be decently composed, the regular crewmen were a rowdy bunch, to say the least. Without a watchful eye, they would always end up in a fight or a brawl. Yamashiro himself lost the count on how many infractions he had to punish in his first few months on the _Bird_. He eventually let his lieutenants sort it all out. Though discipline was still lax, at least the crew occupied themselves with something, even if it were illegal betting fights.

In fact, he had 'volunteered' four of the top brawlers for this mission, only leaving Lisa Torero with a marksmanship badge as scout and Simon "Shank" Dubien from engineering as demolition expert.

"The temple is just around this bend." Torero remarked as she held herself flat against the wall of a government building. With a single flick of her wrist, a tiny wire-like flexible telescope flung out. She pulled out a decent length and bent the end at ninety degrees. She then held out her arm to let the miniscule camera peer around. Yamashiro and the others automatically received the footage from the upper right corner of their vision.

"Lots of clothes, but no lifeforms. X-ray, infrared, radio and etc. yield nothing. I'm going in."

The scout withdrew her telescope and lifted up her ballistic rifle. Reading herself, Torero flung around the corner, darting left and right through cover while keeping on the flank of the approach.

Yamashiro could follow her progress through the minimap, although he tried not to let it distract him too much. There were too many unknowns right now. Other nations or other beings could have been haunting these streets. He had to keep himself sharp. When the scout called back with the all clear, he ordered his men to turn around the corner as well and make way towards the temple.

The sight made him gasp in amazement. The pictures made in space did not compare to the actual sight itself. Huge carved steps climbed upwards from all four sides. The structure itself was like one of the greek temples of old. The walls were straight and smooth. The roof was angular and symmetric, and was supported by thirteen round pillars from all four sides. At the top of the roof was the representation of Lucifer himself, holding his hand on the shoulder of an unknown teenage boy. The entire structure was black, black as midnight and obsidian. Only centuries of wind had eroded the temple's smooth finish, dulling its shine under the afternoon sun. The lack of reflections made the temple seem even more dark and ominous, especially since all the other buildings surrounding the temple were either stone white or metal grey.

As he feared, trudging through the remains of shirts and pants was discomforting. All his men fell silent as they shifted their feet over the old fabrics, some collapsing in dust but most holding out as they did for centuries. Besides the clothes, there was also jewellery. Lots of them. And most of them were figurines. All were similar to the ones Yamashiro and most of his crewmen wore at this very moment. And how could they not? It was the very symbol of humanity's defiance against the Angels.

'The Beast of Lucifer. Exactly the same as my own.'

Snapping out of his daze, Yamashiro continued his careful approach to the temple itself, although it grew increasingly harder due to the increasing density of clothes. He imagined what had happened moments before Adam's Wrath had engulfed this place. Thousands upon thousands of desperate people had congregated to the temple, watching the then functional viewscreens of the cargo ships carrying Adam and Lilith plunging straight into the sun. They must have cheered when the footage showed the ships melting and burning into pieces, before being absorbed into the sun's photosphere. Then Adam's Wrath was upon them, capturing them in its embrace as fast as the speed of light. No one had any warning. Everyone died thinking they had won.

"Watch the steps." Torero warned, who was already at the top of the stairs. "They're large and take a lot of effort to traverse."

The team slowly climbed up the black smooth steps. Each time Yamashiro lifted his leg, he felt as if he was lifting a boulder. The gap was large, and their uneasy surroundings made the climb seem harder. Everyone carefully spread out, keeping their eyes outwards and back from where they came for any signs of enemies. As they reached the top of the stairs, they went past an altar and stopped at a pair of huge wooden double doors.

"Power's dead. The doors won't open." Torero said as she tinkered with the keypad to the side. "We'll have to do this the hard way."

"Mr. Dubien. A shaped charge please." Yamashiro ordered, and stepped back as Shank held out his palms. The pores of his left glove began to excrete a transparent gel, and Shank quickly smeared a rough square against one of the huge doors. As soon as he was finished, he waited half a minute before holding out his other hand to smear a whitish paste over the now-dried gel. When his work was finished, he pierced a miniscule detonator through his handiwork and stepped back behind a column.

"Three. Two. One."

There was a soft explosion as a cut-off appeared in the same shape as the one drawn by Shank. The explosive charge had almost surgically cut through the massive wooden door as a cookie cutter through dough. Then a secondary explosion had triggered itself, annihilating the cut-off portion into meaningless fragments. The way was open to the very heart of the temple of humanity.

The temple of Lucifer.

* * *

**End Notes: **I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter, but I have left it languishing on my hard drive for so many months that I thought it was time to publish it anyway for the heck of it. It isn't proofreaded, but this fic isn't as much an exercise in language as it is in stretching my imagination. All the momentum I and any other fan had in this fic is probably gone by now, but that is okay, since I regard this more as a persistent long-term project than a temporary fancy like the majority of my fics. I truly have a great story to tell with this fic, and I intend to finish it (in maybe six decades).

By the way, I don't know what this _Sozokaze _mentioned in my reviews actually is or means. I assume it's some Starfleet ship that starred in a Star Trek episode with much the same circumstances as the MIN _Ion Bird_. The _Ion Bird_ is not based on a specific (fictional) ship from a specific story, but is more constructed out of an amalgam of historical and science fiction influences, and sociological inferences. The closest analogy I can mention on the top of my head is the late Roman Empire with its overstretched and undermanned legions.


	4. Lucifer's Determination

August 25, 2010  
By RahXephon [847246]

**Author's Notes:** This story is still going slowly but surely on. Out of my current portfolio of published fanfiction, I like this one the most. It's not based off a fleeting preference, and has the potential to be more enduring than my other works. There's also the rather peculiar writing style I've chosen to adopt in this fic that I find very comfortable writing in. Although I still need a lot of work developing it, I'm starting to recognize that some of the published novels I pick up every now and then are inferior to mine. That gives me some hope that my fleeting ambition of attaining the calibre of a published author might be within sight.

* * *

_**Lucifer's Ambition**_

_Lucifer's __Determination_

_

* * *

_

The Supreme Temple of Lucifer. For at least six decades, this huge basalt monstrosity was the centre of the civilization of mankind. It was said that Ibuki the Passionate had sketched the design herself after Lucifer himself entered her dreams. The insides of the temple was relatively simple. Underneath the soil, reinforced by nanocompsteel and several other defences were the offices and official residence of the Matriarch. Above that were the halls of worship and sacrifice. The reception area where captain Yamashiro and his squad had entered was dark and dusty. Were it not for their helmets, they would have choked from the sheer amount of undisturbed dust. Their flashlights hovered shakily over the many effigies and statues lining the approach to the inner chambers. Many great statues of past Evangelions stood silent in their eternal vigil, guarding the faded painted murals that described their greatest achievements. The group of men passed slowly amongst these heroes.

There was _Rendclaw_, the first gen who lasted the longest of his siblings. The _Swiftlight, _reputed to be the fastest Evangelion ever to be created. The _Fireaxe_, who has the highest count of death blows to his name. The _Anti-Paladin_, a venerable weapon's platform and the bane of smaller Angels.

All those heroes paled in comparison to the _Angelslayer_, its likeness carved before their path on the immense double doors that blocked their way into the sacrificial chamber. The terrifying roaring form held up the Lance in a heroic pose towards the radiant sun of god. Surrounding her defiant body were the fallen corpses of past Angels, all not a single match against the Lucifer-blessed Beast. Yamashiro made the sign of Lucifer before the holy image, and the others mimicked his action.

"Frickin' scary, this.." Shank muttered nervously, itching his launcher back and forth, his flashlight hovering in every direction.

Duke forcibly grabbed hold of the muzzle of Shank's weapon. "Stop that."

Yamashiro interrupted them both, and pointed towards the doors. "Stick to the plan, men. Get alongside the doors. I'm going to try to open them."

The four men obeyed, arraying themselves two aside and holding their weapons ready for any Angel monstrosity that might burst out. The entire temple, from its desolate exterior to its dark interior, felt utterly wrong in the men's bones. The sooner they left with the sarcophagus, the better. The captain approached the humongous doors and held on to the thick rusty ring that served as a knocker. The database entry about the temple had specified that the massive doors could only be opened by activating a sophisticated mechanical system that was meant to last for thousands of years. In theory, the lack of electrical and decaying materials should have left the system functioning. Yamashiro wasn't too sure about that, but he wasn't about to desecrate the temple any further than he had to. Every human being had to answer to Lucifer eventually.

KNOCK.

The impact rocked the entire room, echoing far louder than what should have been possible. Before he could contemplate where the amplification came from, the twin stone slabs began to shake. Dust and particles of stone began to fall, and Yamashiro hurried back to safety as the doors began to rotate on their axis. Darkness revealed itself as the doors finally made way fully inwards into the chamber. The men were tense, waiting for any surprise to pop up as they kept their eyes on sonic, radar and infrared scanners. Yamashiro himself switched to full infrared vision, but he could only barely discern the outline of the sacred chamber.

"Throw a light."

Duke held out a wrist over the opening, and his small palm-mounted launcher ejected a seed-like projectile into the darkened chamber. As it finally landed somewhere in the middle, the seed exploded, spreading thin but brightly glowing filaments all over the room. The tiny stretched strings eventually settled itself in mid-air, good enough to provide fifteen minutes of diffuse light.

With a moderate light-amplifying setting, Yamashiro could finally discern the full details of the central chamber. The room was completely circular, with many gothic carvings on the wall marking the epic achievements of humanity. Simple stone benches stretched out most of the room like a flat amphitheatre, all directed towards the back of the room where one of the most holiest displays of mankind was situated.

The massive carving was called the _Ascension of Man_. It depicted hell in all its glory, from the volcanic landscape to the many demons that populated its plains. Sculpted by the famous 21st century artist Vincent Cho in an inspiration from Lucifer himself, the unholy artwork mesmerized the eyes of any child of Lucifer with more than just its unnatural detail, visceral violence and rabid depravity. There was a subtle underlying tone throughout the visions; a single connecting strand that somehow transcended the work. Yamashiro had heard about the endless debates of scholars from all the different star nations of what exactly made this facade so enchanting and highly prized to the ancient Terrans, but with merely pictures and other second-hand records, there were never any definitive answers. Until now.

As marvellous the artwork and other pieces in the room were to the captain, he reminded himself that time was short and danger could be upon them all soon. "Snap it out, men. The enemies may be closing in. Let's start extracting our objective."

His sharp tone put the men back into their minds. Shank and Duke moved in warily to the golden sarcophagus, which gleamed softly in the artificial light. Yamashiro stepped closer himself while the men tried to find a way to attach their miniaturized mobile grav generators, without any luck. Somehow the passing of centuries had eroded the solid stone pedestal that held the coffin, leaving the heavy device half-buried beneath the floor.

"Wasn't this solid marble?" Duke puzzlingly asked. "How could it collapse like this?"

"I don't know... and I don't want to find out."

This would be tough.

* * *

Lieutenant-commander Aoi sat straight and firm in the captain's chair as she had always been taught, hoping the crew wouldn't notice her nervousness. Despite all her confidence and manner, she was still a relatively junior officer to be in sole command of a vessel of war. With the captain away, the executive officer had to take over though. It was different from standing watch alone, as she could at least wake Yamashiro up if there was something amiss. Now though he would be occupied with his own mission, leaving her by herself. Though she had not much respect for the captain and his overly loose command, she could not fault his experience and knowledge. Without a steady hand hovering over her, she felt strangely exposed.

All her previous commissions were on larger ships that contained many dozens of officers, many which had ranks and seniority much higher than hers. The chance that a handful of those officers would all become dead, injured or unavailable through some unfortunate circumstance and leave her in command was tiny enough to be non-existent. But here she was now, with the captain foolishly down on the surface while she prepared the _Bird _for her own atmospheric descent. It was one of the most difficult manoeuvres an interstellar destroyer was capable of. She was not enjoying the tedium before a drop and tried to find a way to distract herself from her thoughts.

"Helmsman Perry, what is the current status for preparations to descent?"

She could have retrieved the information from the holo screens around her chair, but it was still tradition to call out the duty stations. Computers and artificial intelligence had come a long way since the Exodus and Migratory Era, but they were still fallible to sabotage and never did have the intuition for priority that a trained human being possessed.

It was also a convenient vehicle to assert her command, which she noticed was sorely needed from the faint contempt that much of the crew still held towards her. The captain only held their grudging respect because he let them flaunt the rules in their face. That she was not so respectful to such treatment only garnered further exasperation and even some resentment.

Perry's fierce eyes glowered briefly before he answered, "Not long now, ma'm. The hull armour has finished reconfiguring itself in thermal-frictive absorption state, but there were still a few jams, which are causing some gaps to remain open."

"Gaps in the armour? And you didn't feel the need to inform me, helmsman?" Aoi threw back with more anger than was prudent to show.

A growing rage stirred inside her mind. That her subordinate act properly in his duty was bad enough. Much worse was that standards and maintenance had fallen so low amongst the crew that the ship could not flawlessly perform an uncommon but standard routine. What if the phasing of the duel reflective/absorption hull armour malfunctioned during the heat of battle? The _Bird_ would have been caught square in the face in a state of virtually no protection besides gravmag and electromagnetic spikes, which were no help at all against lasers.

"It's nothing big, ma'm, just a few kinks that needed to be smoothed out. Mr. Grayson said he'd only needed a few standard minutes to shake them into place. There was no need to bother you with a slight delay."

"Protocols dictate that _any _malfunction in the phasing of hull armour is to be reported immediately upon detection, Mr. Perry."

"Yes, ma'm." The helmsman grumbled, then followed more softly with, "The captain never cared for these small malfunctions."

"I am _not_ the captain."

Having experienced this evidently sour encounter and learning that the crew could not be relied upon to convey certain pertinent information, she engrossed herself in her console. She browsed through all the status updates of every part of the ship, from engines to environmental to even the galley. It occupied her mind away from dealing with the crew and their rather insubordinate nature while assuring her that the ship could perform to its duty as well as an aged and obsolete destroyer could even after the stress of days-long overburn.

"The armor is fully placed and powered now, no gaps or other malfunctions reporting ma'm." Perry 'helpfully' informed her after ten minutes, with a tone that was not quite sincere.

"Thank you, Mr. Perry." The replied with the same acid undertone. "You may proceed with the planned descent."

The _Ion Bird_'s stable orbit around humanity's ancestral home broke suddenly as her gravmags and engines propelled her into a steep decline towards the planet's lifeless atmosphere. Devoid of bacteria and other certain organic material, it was still enough to heat up an unprepared vessel looking to plunge towards the surface. The ship's dual armour was in its third mode now, which was actually a hybrid between the purely kinetic absorption state and the purely reflective state. The armour was phased not so much midway between them but perpendicular to them both, forming a second axis with remarkable heat- and friction-resistant properties. They would also be vulnerable to all manner of missile and light-speed weaponry, which was less than ideal. Any minute spent during the descent was one of the most vulnerable periods the ship would be in, and she didn't relish being ambushed during this time.

"Mr. Terios, any abnormalities?"

The young officer startled slightly and turned to gaze at her. At least he appreciated her enough to fear her, she thought.

"N-None that I know. The fluctuation in negative space has been growing stronger though since we came closer. It's interfering with our negative space sensors."

Dr. Felton had been going about it for days. He said it must have come from the strange red hazy band and particularly the mysterious black sphere that circled the planet like a second moon. As fascinating and terrifying these two phenomenon were, she agreed with the captain that they had far too little time to study the anomalies in detail and that they had to retrieve their treasures above all else. The scientist was still smouldering over the decision, but spent every waking moment in the system frantically recording and observing the anomalies so he wasn't a bother.

"Very well, proceed Mr. Terios."

There was nothing else she could do but man the station herself, which inappropriate. Besides, members of the House of Katsuragi were always weak in hard sciences. She would have been totally out of depth with the science and technical requirements to operate a sensors and communications station. Terios fit in almost perfectly though. If it wasn't for periodic biometrics inspections, she would have sworn lieutenant Terios was an Ibuki for his meekness and considerable talent in sensors. Certainly not an Akagi though, despite his tuft of clean-cut blond hair. Not that there was any Akagi left in the Empire. All of her descendents had been purged or exiled from the Empire. Some survivors had made it to the reclusive Penemue Technocracy though, which was not a happy thought.

The actual descent was quieter than she realized. She had prepared herself for an array of malfunctions and crises, but as the ship shuddered heavily as she plunged through the upper layer of the atmosphere, none ever occurred. Aoi didn't know whether to attribute it to sheer luck or that the crew had actually worked hard enough to prevent it from falling apart.

It was definitely luck.

The shudder running through the entire ship could not have been completely dampened out. It would have taken too many energy and the ship's capabilities were focused elsewhere. That left herself and the entire crew in an uncomfortable ride as they strapped onto their seats or maglocked with their boots to tend to other stations.

Finally the descent was finished as the ship had leeched off enough velocity and engaged its principle gravmag generators to maintain a gentle decline. With only a handful of kilometres from the surface, Newton's law of gravity had kicked into full gear, increasing the power and efficiency of the gravmag generators to a frightening proportion. If they had dumped all power besides environmental and other essentials into the generators this close to a planet, the ship would shoot out into space with the force of a meteor impact. The ship could not hope to compensate, wrenching itself apart but not before letting the crew inside smash itself into pulp against the bulkheads.

Aoi tried not to think about that possibility and other risks as she barked out other orders. Affirmations and other verbal data responded to her replies. Even Perry's cheek was left behind as he was fully intent on controlling a vessel that was primarily meant to operate in empty space. There were far more systems to keep in mind of under the influence of friction and gravity, and he was having his hands full just keeping the ship straight, not trusting any artificial aid. Aoi thought it rather foolish, though she did not begrudge the natural paranoia every sailor had towards AIs. Anything that was automated could be hacked.

"Two hundred klicks from the target, ma'm."

They were near now. Her sluggish ship would be arriving soon towards the ancient Battlefield where many hundreds of Angels had fallen to the might of humanity. Though she was never a particularly devout member of the church, her pivotal position in this historical event had pushed her into the grasp of Lucifer. She had made her prayers to the Lord of Humanity a scant few hours earlier and offered a suitable amount of blood sacrifice to pay for the transgressions the _Ion Bird_ was about to perform. She had promised to the Lord many more quantities of her blood and perform several depraved and degrading acts if she would make it out alive.

'_Your turn, Lt. Maharadi.'_

_

* * *

_

Lieutenant Suraja Maharadi stood calmly in the CIC, gazing up at the holy displays hovering above and the three-dimensional topography displayed on top of the command table. The soft blue glow of projections washed his muted black-and-gold uniform in unnatural light, though he didn't feel bothered by it. He had sat and stood for many hours in the CIC of not only this vessel but on several others as well. He was infinitely familiar of every corner and every duty station in this room. Yamashiro or Aoi may rule the bridge, but here in the center-aft part of the _Bird_ he was king.

The crewmen and ensigns manning the various weapons and defence consoles were as stern-faced and stoic as he, quite a change from the usual routine. While Ensign Travers, in charge of offence, and Ensign Schalter, leading the defence were both rather modest, the same could not be said of what he thought as dysfunctional people.

The _MIN Ion Bird _was a berth for problem cases, and there were no exceptions here. One of his missile specialists had a penchant for the trade in illegal modifications – which made sending him off on a two-year duty in the middle of nowhere a perfect occasion. The older woman in charge of the mazzers or masitron arrays held unnerving desires to bed young officers – Maharadi kept his ensigns well away from that one. There were plenty of other nut cases in the CIC, himself included, and managing each and every one of them usually proved to be a handful. Not this time though with the impending operation looming over their heads. To be thrust into the whirlpool of Lucifer and the Angels made any sensible person forget about their vices. What they were about to engage in would change the destiny of not only the Merihim Empire but the entire fate of the human race. Their jobs, their lives and perhaps their very souls were on the line.

This was _his_ time now.

He relished his position and the responsibility thrust onto him. He enjoyed the feeling of absolute power, as Lucifer once stood against God and the Champion stood against the Angels. Though he was level-headed enough to know he couldn't compare to either monoliths of humanity, the chance to nevertheless decide the fate of all of humankind was narcotic in its excess of risk and reward. Wealth, power and prestige would all flow towards him if he could help to bring in just one of the Gifts of Lucifer. Imprisonment, death or eternal damnation in the slaughter pits of Heaven awaited him should he fail and shepherd his ship into disaster.

To say he was ambitious and reckless could be an understatement. That wouldn't matter so much if he was Abbadon, which he would fit right in, or was actually successful in his ventures. That he was stationed on a dead-end post in the middle of nowhere said much about his actual talent for success.

Still, despite the indifference of the captain and the mild contempt from the executive officer, he was the only fully qualified weapons officer on the ship. Like it or not, he was the director of the _Bird_'s offence and defence and he would tolerate no second strings. This was his realm by right of his rank and qualifications.

Ensign Travers was triple checking the status and integrity of all the weapon mounts, as Maharadi had ordered. With the state of decay that the _Ion Bird _had suffered in its long heyday, nothing was without risk. He had been riding his missile armament chief hard with his demands on the planned modifications to the Salamander air-to-ground missiles. Designed for bunker-busting, it also contained a rather nasty mix of components that spread out corrosive substances that would melt a bar of steel clean through. Needless to say, in order to prevent burning through any valuable remains, the corrosive packs had to be removed and the overall charge had to be toned down in order to minimize further damage than was necessary.

"Five minutes until commencement."

It wouldn't be long now before his planned operation would come into motion. He had spent many hours studying the ancient records of the Battlefield and all its former glory and compared it with the up to date long distance imaging. Rotten carcasses of ancient roads and skyscrapers dotted the landscape, along with many artificial lakes and ruins from the century of carnage that had visited the site. Ancient fixed defences and a plethora of hard defences made it hard to penetrate through the upper crust of the Geofront and down all the way to the central dogma.

Luckily, the 1731st Angel, better known as the Butcher had done most of the work. When the Champion had perished from the stress of battle in his old age, the Beast had remained untouched at the gates to which she guarded the tomb of Lilith. Humanity was too panicked into dealing with the First and Second Angel to move the Beast to a more proper but difficult to access space. The gaps the Slayer had burned through were repaired in some fashion, but according to the latest records coming from the planet it was still incomplete.

"Two minutes until commencement."

But could the records be relied upon? How much did a millennium affect the geography of the site? Did the artificial lava flows still run through the carefully shielded layers? Dr. Felton assured him that it did not due to the damage of that last battle, but he could never be sure.

So he assumed it would not, and calibrated his missiles to expect only empty air or water between the layers. If he was wrong... then at the worst he might cause the lava flow through the gaps and into the central dogma, engulfing the Beast and the Lance in searing heat. The Lance might be recoverable with great effort, but the organic remnants of the Beast would surely be annihilated.

If that happened, he'd be better off killing himself immediately. If he did not, then he'd likely be tortured to insanity by the Empire.

'_Still, no use dwelling on ifs.'_

"Three, two, one."

"Commence the operation now!" Maharadi ordered firmly, though it was hardly needed as he had already timed everything out. He quickly changed the main topographic map from a top-down overview to a more detailed three-dimensional representation. The _Ion Bird_ was hovering high above the target and had just launched its first volley of DTL cluster missiles. His eyes followed the paths of the munitions as it accelerated downwards before splitting up into smaller components at a predetermined altitude. The small, football-sized missiles continued to race downwards in a widening cloud before impacting against the upper surface of the Geofront.

DTL missiles didn't explode like conventional armaments. They didn't heat up to the temperature of the sun like thermal weaponry do, nor did they loosen the molecular bonds between particles like the masitron arrays, although it worked somewhat similar. The DTL missiles all carried a miniaturized and crude precursor to the Weithoff drive. Instead of allowing ships to sink partially into negative space and travel faster than light, the loopers simply turned all matter in its limited range onto itself. The exact effects were rather too gruesome to explain in detail, but suffice to say stuff nearby basically melted into goo.

The surface of the Battlefield was rather thick and resilient as they were designed to deal with loopers. Humanity had come a long way since those days though, and it took only a single volley to loop away the entire upper crust and make a serious dent on the lower crust.

"Phase two commencing."

This was the part where the Salamanders came into play. Loopers worked great in most cases, but punching through the second layer of defence required a bit more finesse. The range of loopers was a bit unstable, which might cause the central dogma to collapse on itself. Also, if even a single cluster punched through fell onto the Lance or the Beast, then his career would be over. He patiently followed the progress of the heavier Salamanders and they dropped through the Geofront and towards the heavy plating that covered their prize.

The first missile held no charge, but was in a beefed up drilling setting. Its hardened and spiked tip glowed bright as it initiated vibro-mode at the same time it started spinning. The single missile drilled a small hole straight into the Central Dogma and a small depth further before the automated self-destruct sequence harmlessly disabled the device.

The next missiles came in sixty-second intervals. Their charges had been set to maximum horizontal, ensuring a wide swathe of superheated destruction. The first one through the hole exploded almost immediately, lighting and disintegrating up a circle of soil and plating in almost a full second. The next ones passed through the opening and further into the remaining hole that was drilled earlier in order to set off a cascade openings. The well-planned sequence seemed to be a carefully choreographed dance to Maharadi, cycling destruction and silence in a regular rhythm that was not unlike a performance. He felt very much the Maestro in charge.

"Final missile has been detonated. Scans are in progress."

This was the uncertain part of the piece. He could not accurately calculate the effects of his sequence of destruction without knowing the exact state of repair and decay of the Battlefield. A millennium under the influence of Adam's Shadow could have had a plethora of effects on the ancient defences. This was why he had erred on the side of caution and kept back the final part until he was certain it could do no damage.

A window popped up from his display. It was Lt. Terios, and his voice was tense. "Scans of this moment indicate that the patterns are well within parameters sir. However, the final layer is significantly more fractured than was thought. Its destruction is projected to cause a large amount of debris to rain down. Sir."

Maharadi already mulled over the Terios' words as he waved him away. Shortly after, a new display popped up, showing the terse face of Lieutenant-commander Aoi.

"Well?"

He scrolled through some displays even though he didn't need the information for his answer. "It's doable.. actually, it's easier. The Salamander's blast would focus more deeply at the outer edges, and the remaining portions that might fall would present less drain to the generators than a single larger piece. I recommend we proceed with the main sequence, ma'm."

The woman in charge grimaced slightly before nodding. "Very well, proceed Mr. Maharadi."

Maharadi tried to suppress his own grimace. He was good at that, at hiding his contempt for creatures such as Aoi and the rest of the House of Katsuragi. Their liberal ideals and flaunting sexuality were a disgrace to the service. The Katsuragi influence on the Imperial Navy was a slowly acting poison that had already wrecked much damage in eroding discipline and promoting an atmosphere of fucking everything on two legs. Where was the duty and honour when all that the service members had in mind was naked hedonism.

'_Pleasure to the benefit of man was the way of Lucifer. Pleasure to the detriment of __man was the way of God.'_

He had heard it often from the words of Dr. Regis in one of his informal sermons. As an Ibukiist the unofficial pastor actually encouraged passion amongst the crew, at least when he thought the captain and the XO weren't listening in. The medical officer was less careful around the quiet and supposedly bookish Maharadi though. The weapons officer had learned enough to see that Regis' interpretation was misguided. Typical of the Neo-Genesis Evangelical Church.

He did not disclose amongst the crew that he was a follower of the ultra-conservative Old Order Church. He wasn't that stupid. Hinting at being a proponent to the true ideals of humanity in the image of Gendo the Father was much like admitting that you had contracted a fatal and contagious disease. Such admissions were not very pleasant.

So he kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused on the tactical display as he saw the missile blowing apart the last layer. Simultaneously, the _Ion Bird_ had started to descent, dropping faster as each second past by as the gravmag generators worked their magic.

The intensifying drop served two purposes. One was to lift up most of the loose rubble that was left in the hole that was drilled in order to prevent any dangerous collisions to any relics that were hidden directly beneath. Second was to simply bring the ship closer to its target. They needed all the proximity they could get, square distances in the laws of gravity and all that.

The stress on the ship grew rapidly as the ship gained momentum. _'The helmsman sure isn't cutting any slack.'_ The ship started to shake slightly as friction started to rise. The vibrations were low, muted, not unlike the hectic spectacle of an atmospheric descent.

The _Bird_ arrived on the surface much faster than he had anticipated. Perry had slowed down the ship barely in time before that though, and Maharadi was glad the ship wouldn't plunge into darkness at over a hundred kliks per hour. Instead, the ship would be lowering itself into the hole they had just created in a more measured pace while scanning the tunnel and what lay below. The lieutenant kept a careful eye on the raw visuals as the floodlights flicked on, illuminating the football stadium sized cavity.

The damage from the intense heat of the Salamander to the walls of the cavity was pretty much as expected. As they lowered more slowly towards the central dogma, waiting for the floodlights to reveal the state of the relics, Maharadi busied himself with the status of other stations. He made sure some of the missile tubes were filled with clusters of short-range interceptors. While the small projectiles couldn't dent any decent ship, they had virtually no minimum safety range, extremely manoeuvrable in tiny spaces and would not set off an entire collapse.

It was not long before the ship broke through the final cloud of ash and dust and entered inside the famed hall that was the Central Dogma.

The decay and rot was even worse than on the surface. The floor was ripped and scorched. Various defensive hard points were ripped from the walls and lay on the floor in broken heaps. Ichor of various colours stained the walls around them, giving the giant cavern an ominous look.

What was worse was the graveyard. Many hundreds of proud and fabled Evangelions lay in heaps and vast pools of vile yellow liquid. Virtually all of their unholy flesh had eroded away, leaving only bare bones and metallic attachments. Ancient weapons mounts, though pitiful weapons by his modern standards, still lay proudly side by side with their decayed organic masters. Every single piece of what lay in the cavern would be invaluable beyond anyone's entire dream. Even the giant empty cross where the devious and evil Second Angel had hanged naked to the cross would be coveted by millions of churches.

It was unfortunate that they would all have to be destroyed. Their puny destroyer could not hold off even a single taskforce even with the help of the Zagan bioship. They could never hope to hold this system in time to raid its many treasures. There was no other choice but to desecrate the smaller gifts of Lucifer in order to deny their rival star nations.

"Launch the package." He ordered curtly, and Ensign Travers executed his commands.

Even before the ship had finished scanning the entire Central Dogma, half of the _Bird_'s broadsides launched virtually the rest of their complement of Salamanders. The heavy missiles spread out clumsily around the giant cavity as they followed a pre-programmed path before their propulsion cut off, letting the heavy tubes fall harmlessly to the ground, inert but ready to detonate.

"They're found!" Schalter suddenly exclaimed, forgetting her decorum. A sharp glance from her superior put her into place however, and she followed more subdued with, "I-I apologise, sir, I meant to say that Lt. Terios has conveyed that he has determined the probable location of the Beast, and possibly the Lance."

Strange that it took so long to locate the iconic Gifts. They towered over fourty meters each; how hard was it to find them in an open space even with mere eyes? "Any visuals available?"

"Ehm.. no sir. Lt. Terios reports that the Beast has been located through negative space sensors only.. it's behind a wall."

"A wall? But there aren't any other chambers besides the entrance chamber and the great hall, and the great doors are ripped off completely."

His eyes tracked Terios' progress to match the data from his negative space sensors with his other sensors and make sense of it all. The output from the negative space sensors would be heavily distorted this close inside the gravity well of a planet. He understood that time was needed.

"A match has been found! Bearing one-seven-six!"

"Behind the large elevator." Maharadi gasped. Before Aoi could open a link, he already did so. "Ma'm."

"Mr. Maharadi." She nodded back gravely. "I assume you come to discuss the problem that we are facing at this moment. Any suggestions?"

Any ill feelings he might had towards here were completely shoved out of his mind as he almost frantically cycled through his options. They needed to remove the doors barring their way to the Gifts of Lucifer quickly before other star nations would arrive. However, if they did it with too much force they might risk fatally damaging either artefact.

What was the right choice? Small loopers were out of the question, for they were too unstable in with this tiny range. Salamanders as well. Mazzers also had too much depth and very little precision, being a more dispersed armament suited to fending off swarms of missiles or drones. Lasers could melt through the gigantic metal doors, but it would take a considerable time in order to prevent the heat from building up to a critical level that it might damage the Gifts. No.. what was needed was precision work.

"I have an idea, ma'm." He finally replied as he set the shared display to the schematic of the inner citadel. He motioned his hands expertly, controlling the view and zoom level until it came upon the lower end of the elevator. "Every door has hinges. These ones are of a fully internal design, but with a minute or two of careful burning with our forward laser mounts I am confident they can be cut through."

"Hmmm.. that would not necessarily leave open a path."

"Yes, ma'm, but we could use our forward gravmag generators as well to apply a light pull on the disconnected doors. If we are careful, we can pull them from the doorframe and then with localized attraction we can knock them down.. towards our direction of course."

"Of course." Aoi smiled ruefully. "Proceed with the arrangements."

"Yes, ma'm."

When the slow process of burning through all eight hinges and slowly pulling out the doors was done and through, the moment they had all been waiting for was final upon them. How much was preserved in the shadow of Adam's reign? Would he have utterly defiled and debased the Gifts of Lucifer, or would His Lord's protection shield them from the mightiest of God's vile creation?

As the giant slabs of metal were finally pulled down, the glory of Lucifer was finally revealed. Everyone gasped their breath as the visuals patched through.

"Power overwhelming."

There, surrounded by the tarnished walls of the elevator, stood the Beast in all its unaging glory. The very sight of her magnificent glory ran a chill through everyone's spine, as if a heavy and foreboding presence had entered the room. Silent, lifeless, but proud. Her unnatural existence was a shout of defiance to the tyranny of Heaven and the cruelty of God. Every human being alive to this day owed their lives and prosperity to this centuries old weapon of war.

Her lines were sleek, her face was savage. The jaw was shut close, but the lips were set back. The Gift revealed her menacing set of teeth for all to see, as if flaunting the fact that she had eaten many dozens of God's own Children, adding their power to within itself. With every swallow of flesh and every absorption of evil souls the Beast had grown. Not in size, not in power output, nor in speed, but in its ominous presence alone. It was said that in the prime of the Champion's life, merely standing a single kilometre away from Lucifer's own flesh would put a man to knees and a woman to tears. Each and every new soldier and pilot in the line of duty had to engage in an intensive program of acclimatization in order to deal with being in close proximity to the Beast for more than an hour.

Everyone else felt the need to go as far away as possible, to the opposite side of the planet even.

The full aura of the Beast's accomplishments took everyone by surprise, even when the captain and the rest of the officers had anticipated the effect. The records on the Beast were vastly vague about its more.. esoteric properties. In a world of hard science and devoid of any evidence of the divine, it was hard to believe some of the more exaggerated worshipful accounts of the Greats.

The _Angelslayer_ was no exaggeration. Her armour, composed of the latest and most expensive composite materials of the twenty-second century, remained unchanged in design since the Beast's very first deployment. Tall, thin, form-fitting and segmented, the measly purple and green offerings attached to this ungodlike creature was humanity's pitiful tribute to a power they did not deserve but felt grateful to. The surface of the armour was painted in the very finest samples of purple, green and yellow human ingenuity could offer. It was said that a hundred different virgin beauties from all around the world would be chosen to clean and polish the surface of its armour every standard week. Those beauties would be consequently offered to the Champion as a tiny tribute to his immensely generous service, but the Chosen of Lucifer would always decline the offer in seeming disgust.

No woman was ever found to be worthy of his intimacy after Katsuragi the Great's forceful intervention. Though the intercourse had pulled the Champion out of his pain and apathy, it also made him more bitter and distant to the humans he fought to preserve. Not even the sacrifice of ten thousand newborn babies to the glory of him and Lucifer made him fully accept humankind. If anything else, it made him despise Man even more. Was the sacrifice insufficient?

The priests of the then united Church of Lucifer were desperately searching for ten times the number of babies to sacrifice. When the Champion got word of their intentions, he stormed over to the Supreme Temple of Lucifer in person and stabbed all the senior religious officials in the heart with a letter opener. Apparently, the blood sacrifice of old, venerable men and women who had cast out the lies of the Cruel God and served much of their remaining life in devotion to Lucifer was sufficient to appease the Champion.

Every hence year forward, the Church would pick forty senior officials amongst their ranks and proceed with an elaborate ritual of stabbing them in the heart as the Champion did himself at that fateful day. That tradition carried forward to this very day long after the Exodus, with both the Evangelical Church and the Old Order offering up forty of the senior ranks to this envious sacrifice and grant them the reward of eternal pleasure and depravity in Hell. Some say the ten thousand babies, grown in the fullness of mind and body but kept in eternal youth by the grace of Lucifer, would personally greet the new entrants and offer their sinful and handsome bodies to their service. Many priests indeed clamoured to be selected.

Still, it did not change the Champion's temperament. It was said that he had once exclaimed that the only time he would be satisfied if everyone would leave him alone. That was unthinkable. Even the dwindling rebel worshippers of the Cruel God wanted to attend to him – if only to kill him. To leave the Champion to fend for himself would be a gross disservice to Lucifer's trust. The Champion did not quite agree with that opinion.

That bitterness reflected on the Champion's mighty instrument. The _Angelslayer_ radiated an aura of poison and menace, an utterly unfriendly sensation that crawled through everyone's skins. Her faded and sorely chipped coat of paint, forgotten in time and memory, was a symbol of gross neglect to one of the most important treasures Lucifer had bestowed upon mankind. Rage was her comfort, chaos was her sex.

If the Beast was the perfect primal reflection of Lucifer, the Lance was the sum of his ambition. Almost twice as tall as the Beast, the Lance was gleamed in the light as if it was never abandoned at all in the grasp of its master. Being in the presence of the legendary Lance of Longinus was an unimaginable experience. How could any mere mortal pay tribute to such a perfect weapon? Its cool twin spikes had tasted the blood of a son of God, and countless of Angels much later thereafter. The Lance was a weapon utterly incapable of comprehending peace. It craved the blood of the divine so much that it had dyed itself in the same shade of red in its savage bloodlust.

Everyone on the ship sat or stood captivated in silence for far longer than was prudent. Eventually, a systems-wide broadcast popped up all over the ship. It was the XO. "All crew, turn back to your assigned tasks. There is enough time later for worship." And then she disappeared.

"Wow... what was that?" It worked. The people in the CIC shook their heads and shamefully went back to their neglected duties. Maharadi himself had painfully tore his gaze from the visuals and began to check the status of the gravmag generators. They had been straining hard ever since the ship descended onto the planet, but they weren't designed to last more than a day. They had already wasted a few hours and he wasn't keen on staying any longer. They just had to retrieve both relics and boost out of the gravity well as fast as possible.

"Ensign Schalter, what are your projections on our possible methods of retrieval?"

She was working on some figures and was too occupied to turn around and face her superior. "The weight of both are in spec. Vertical retrieval is not practical due to the limited dimensions of the elevator, but horizontal or diagonal retrieval is possible. It will take four primary gravmag nodes to lift the relics to our underbelly. Then we only need two primary nodes to secure the Beast and one secondary node to secure the Lance."

As was expected, more or less. He turned to a recently opened display to the bridge and repeated Schalter's words to the XO. She nodded her confirmation to proceed with the plan.

As if a switch had turned on, the Beast slowly started to drag towards the hovering _Ion Bird_. The procedure had to be done carefully in order to avoid toppling over either relics. Fine-tuned controls operated by a gravmag specialist carefully localized the focused beams of gravity onto the Beast to insure the pull was heavier on the feet than on the head. Computer aid was inevitable in this kind of action, as there were too many calculations that needed to be performed in too little time. Slowly, but surely, the silent Beast and the mighty weapon in its hand began to pull away from the ground. As the angle between the relics and the ship became steeper, it became safer to lift the two heavy burdens up. Like a magnet pulling on a nail, the ship attracted the relics towards its belly, carefully fluctuating the local strengths of the gravmag nodes as they burdened to retrieve their objective.

Minutes passed as the power pulled back. The distance was almost negligible now, so that less power was needed to attract. Also, they didn't want the objects to collide against the ship, so the gravmag operator carefully eased in the objects as if he was operating a docking procedure. Almost gently, the relics stuck onto the flat surface of the destroyer. Immediately after, small crab-like appendages shot out from the undersides and wrapped themselves around the Relics like a mother clutching her baby. A noticeable sigh sounded out in the CIC when Schalter confirmed the objects were secured.

"Let's get out of here."

Compared to the ship's violent plunge downwards, the ascent was relatively quiet and peaceful. Everyone kept their eyes carefully on their chosen tasks, but more than a few devoted their thoughts to prayer as they thanked Lucifer for their success.

The executive officer inspected her list of targets calmly as the ship struggled to escape Terra's grasp with its added weight. It would be difficult, but manageable. Still, before they could leave, they had to leave one last gift. With a single flick of her finger, she confirmed the list and sent it off to the CIC.

A few minutes later, the munitions that were left behind in the central dogma had detonated. A few minutes after that, the _Ion Bird_'s only complement of strategic N2 warheads had reached to their destinations and exploded in hellish fury. Research centres, computer databases, maintenance facilities and anything else that had to do with the dreaded Evangelions were all blown up in order to leave nothing salvageable for the enemy.

Though the Empire had struck the most important resource centres, a single destroyer did not possess the amount of munitions necessary to strike out all documented locations. Still, it would set back the Empire's rivals.

"Begin full ascent."

"Aye aye, ma'm."

LtCmdr. Aoi sat coolly on her chair, trying consciously to push back the fact that they were actually pulling this crazy stunt off. The weight of the Beast's aura had faded into the background now, allowing herself and others to focus on their task of escaping humanity's ancestral planet and begin to make way to friendly space.

KaBOOM!

Aoi gritted her teeth as alarms blazed all around her. Only seconds earlier the ship shook several unwitting crewmen off their feet as a surprise attack caught them hard. Her eyes immediately went to the status of the still-approaching Zagan vessel, but it was still an hour's travel distance away. Who else could have hit them?

"Sitrep, now!" She barked, turning to Terios as he worked the data of the surprise attack.

"One thermal pulse, duration 0,57 seconds, strength is 6,5 Arcs, significant atmospheric degradation. Bearing is zero-six-three one-five-six."

'_Only a single laser strike, and our defences held. If there were more ships__ in range, they would have had ample time to position themselves. If the bogey is classed as anything bigger than a destroyer, then it would have had the capacity to burn through in their first hit. Either he's alone... or his reinforcements were hours away. Still, our own reinforcement is still at least an hour away.'_

The ship shook again, but her armour was still holding off the pulse.

"13 percent until the armour reaches its critical temperature limit. Emergency heat sinks are in place."

"Get me a lock on the bogey now!"

"Working on it ma'm, but the ship is stealthed and is moving in fast orbit." Terios replied as he worked on his consoles.

She turned to the helmsman. "How long until we break out of the atmosphere?"

"At least ten minutes, far too long for the armour to hold out! Our increased mass is taking a toll on our acceleration!"

"Shit!" She cursed unabashedly and turned back to Terios. "You better find me that target or we won't live to make it out!"

"Light missiles incoming! Projected paths suggest staggered delayed launch; unable to triangulate the bogey's position or trajectory. Point defence lasers are engaging."

The simultaneous assault of staggered missiles and periodic pulses of thermal energy continued as the _Ion Bird_ desperately tried to claw its way out. The enemy up in high orbit could not be pinpointed as the strikes came from varying angles. It was a classic up-down duel, but with the added fact that the Imperial ship was burdened with the weight of the Beast and Lance and the opponent was not. It became clear that the ship could not escape in time.

Maharadi's voice popped up from the side. Aoi didn't turn to face him, but listened to his report. "Ma'm, the Black Field Generators are straining at their peak but we still don't have enough power. The capacitors for our point defence are draining but we cannot allocate enough power to recharge them quickly enough. We are simply doing too many things at the same time. And Lt. Grayson says that if we lose a single primary gravmag node in the next several minutes, it would delay us by another fifteen minutes. "

He was right, she realized. They were spreading themselves thin with power. They could not elevate fast enough with the added weight while also maintaining power to the powered armour and point defence. Something had to give.

An idea surfaced in her mind. "Mr. Maharadi, would we have enough time to hold out if we dropped our payload and use all our gravmag generators to bounce off the planet?"

"The stresses to the ship would be enormous, and we are already more than halfway up to near space. However... with the reduced payload, added efficiency of node coverage and a more aerodynamic profile we _could_ cut our flight time by up to sixty percent, seventy-three if we overrule the safety margins." His face turned to an expression of wary concern then. "But.. what about the relics, ma'm? Are we just going to release them and let them drop to the surface?"

That would have been unthinkable even for the most pragmatic Katsuragi. "No lieutenant, that was not what I have in mind. I was thinking of performing a reverse belly launch. Do we have the gravmag capacity to perform such an action?"

His eyes widened at the crazy suggestion. Still.. "It can work! If full power is redirected to our lower gravmag nodes for at least one-and-a-half seconds, then our cargo would be able to acquire enough escape velocity to be launched into orbit. If we hold our launch for more than five seconds, then it will be possible to launch the cargo beyond Terra's orbit. If the enemy ship chooses to pursue the cargo, then it will take much time to catch up."

"Very well then, make preparations for the launch. Coordinate with the helmsman on the angle and timing. Try to choose a trajectory that would lead the cargo to the incoming Zagan ship."

His eyes shaded a bit from that last order. "Aye aye, ma'm. Maharadi out."

They would give up the Beast and the Lance to the Zagan vessel, still three quarter hours out, and hope that the non-human abominations would keep their end of the agreement.

"Looks like the captain will have to make it to orbit on his own."

* * *

Lifting up the sarcophagus proved to be more difficult than planned. The miniaturized gravmag nodes needed to be placed below the heavy case in order to be transported stably. With hard work and a lot of hands, they were eventually able to lift off a corner of the heavy block from the broken floor and place a node under it. With some more work they were able to attach the other node on the other side of the coffin.

It was just when they stepped outside the temple when they were met with opposition.

"INCOMING PROJECTILE!"

Everyone instantly dodged, forgetting even about the priceless coffin. Only a second or so later the vast basalt stairs was engulfed in heat and fire. Yamashiro had not been able to put much distance, and was propelled off the steps in a violent wave.

"Auto drones!"

Fire was already pouring out from the ground crew's weapons. Yamashiro thanked his flexible armour for absorbing much of the damage of the fall and crawled his body into cover. As soon as he was safe and clear in mind, he activated his holo display to get a sense of the battle around him. He could see his men scattered about behind the sculptures and walls of the black temple, trying to peek out and shoot whatever was firing back with high-intensity lasers.

Hovering on the opposite side of the street but noticeably closing the distance was a trio of automated combat drones. Having expended their single explosive payload, they were harrying the ground crew with their relentless and accurate laser pulses. He thought it peculiar that the enemy had only decided to send in drones. Was the enemy war vessel too far away for a shuttle to reach the surface in time? After all, purpose-built drones could withstand g-forces in much more excess than human beings, and they could be deployed to the surface from deep space much earlier and with a much higher entry speed. The drones were probably launched many hours earlier then. No reinforcements would be coming soon.

"Duke, what the fuck are you doing!"

Yamashiro hadn't paid much attention, and regretted it instantly when he saw the big crewman popping out of cover in order to fire his portable positron cannon. He got off one shot, but was wildly out of mark even with computer assistance. The drones had reacted shortly after that single shot, firing a trio of laser pulses that hit the cannon, an arm and a shoulder simultaneously.

The weapon blew apart, and Duke's armoured suit proved to be almost no protection at all as heavy burns punched deep within his flesh. Shank dropped his launcher and pulled his colleague back into cover, but it was too late for the arm. Automatic routines buried deep within the suit's programming had changed the shape of the armour and cut off the half-hanging arm, sealing the stump and expending a variety of medical chemicals to stopgap the wound from spreading further. Even the screams were muted by his helmet, leaving only a shaking and agonizing figure behind.

The men were frantically firing their laser rifles at the drones. They were accomplishing some hits, but the drones seemed to be shielded against thermal weaponry. A particle weapon could cut through the drones with easy, but their only weapon of this type had been lost through Duke's foolish actions.

The captain had to take control over the sporadic fire before the drones would reach their location and be able to assault them from multiple directions. The crossfire would massacre them faster than it would take him to empty his pistol.

"Stick to cover! The drones don't carry ammunition, so the stones should provide adequate protection! Fire only from indirect vision, don't eyeball your shot!"

Which was what they were pretty much doing anyway, but he wanted to be sure there wouldn't be another Duke.

"Miss Sterling, can your shuttle support us?"

A short crackling voice replied, "Not at the moment! We're being pursued by over a dozen auto drones! Our armour is holding but our fire can not track their rapid movements very well!"

"Keep the shuttle safe. If you're dead, we won't be able to extract." He switched channels then. "Torero! What is your status."

The sniper responded instantly. "Up on the roof of the Archive and cloaked, sir. I have a clear shot of one of the drones, but if I do I will be discovered."

'_Damn. Her rifle should be able to penetrate the shielding of an auto drone, but if the other two survive then she would be vulnerable to a counter-attack.__ And there is no guarantee whether or not ballistic fire would penetrate the drone's shielding.'_

"Maintain stealth and hold your fire until I signal you to do so. You're our hidden trump card."

"Aye aye, captain."

They would have to manage to destroy at least two of the drones before putting their sniper into play. Yamashiro scanned the local environment quickly, taking in the walls, statues and a myriad of other places of cover. "I've got an idea. Everyone, fall back into the temple through the main doors. Mr. Dubien, drop claymores just inside to either sides of the entrance."

Everyone navigated through the plethora of cover in the form of low walls, sculptures and pillars to reach back inside the entrance they had just came out from. The drones approached rapidly, their silent flight unheard by all but the sensors Torero had placed earlier were still tracking their movements. Yamashiro followed the three automatons' progress as they whizzed rapidly towards the single open entrance.

"Get ready, Mr. Dubien!"

As soon as the first drone was beginning to enter the frame, a shaped charge had exploded, flinging fiery explosion and shrapnel in a wide angle. Only half a second later as the second drone tried to pull away, the second charge detonated, catching the robot's gravmag propulsion. The egg-shaped device dropped to floor and was easy pickings. The third drone had retreated back into the open, making it a perfect target for their sniper.

"Torero hit it now!"

Lisa Torero was not a marksman by profession. She was an environmental specialist, taking care of recycling facilities. For someone who worked with human excrement, the stoic and petite woman seemed to be anything but a killer. But killing came easy in her nature, perhaps _too_ easy or she wouldn't be stationed on the _Ion Bird_. With the right genes and plenty of hours on the ship's simulated firing range, she had converted her boredom into precision, earning qualifications in marksmanship and reconnaissance. Though she wasn't as good as a lifelong trained marine or commando, she was the best shot of the entire crew.

All her vision narrowed down to just the circle of her scope. Computer aids operated the tiny servo engines in her arm to match the flight of the drone. However, like all good marksmen, she did not rely on the motions to deliver the final shot, only to get a feel for the flight pattern of her target. Fighting an AI with models and algorithms was like fighting fire with oil. Only human intuition was the answer. As she directed her implant to switch off the automation, she took a deep breath and lined her shot.

BANG!

The kinetic sniper rifle discharged its magnetically projected bullet towards the expected position of the drone a few hundred meters from her hiding spot. The gigantic recoil had been largely cushioned by her specialized shoulder pads, but as she had put the rifle in its highest setting it still knocked her off her prone position and slammed her body a meter away. It was her only chance to get a clean shot at the final drone, and if she had missed, she would not live for long. She checked her heads-up display to see whether her aim was true.

It was. The drone could not withstand the large amount of kinetic force at so small a surface area. The bullet penetrated the drone's meagre gravmag and electromagnetic spikes to wreck havoc on its internal components. It fell down the streets with a silent cry of digital death.

She was met with congratulations. "Good shot Lisa! Remind me not to mess with you!"

"That's enough men." Yamashiro's calmed and relieved voice cut through the local net. "We don't know if there are more drones arriving and our shuttle is still under fire. Take up a defensive perimeter and await our extraction. It may turn out to be a hot pickup."

A small moment passed before his voice sounded through the comnet again. "And by the way, where's the sarcophagus?"

"..Uhm.. sir, captain... it's here at the bottom of the steps.. but.."

"The lid was blown off.. Sir.. you better see this."

The captain, weary from even that short brief bit of combat, tiredly lifted himself up from the wall he was leaning on and stepped back out in the open to look at the ruined sarcophagus, still afloat by the portable gravmag nodes but had obviously collided against a statue of a legendary Evangelion. The top was open. Somehow the lid had budged itself loose, even though it was sealed with multiple safeties that were designed to last for millennia. Shank and another crewman were standing out in the open, exposed, but gaping openly at what was contained inside. Yamashiro was too distracted to even scold them for their stupidity, and joined them to see what was so peculiar.

With the advanced design and technologies assembled by Ibuki the Passionate herself, the unholy corpse of the Champion should have been embalmed and preserved in the state he had died. Yamashiro expected to see a body who looked to be a great-grandfather.

Instead, he was looking at a darkened, dried-out and half-decayed wreck of a corpse. The abominable sight was more skeleton than blackened skin. The eyes were more ooze than tissue and the rotted teeth seemed more befitting to an old beggar than the most venerated man in the universe.

* * *

**End Notes:** I feel like doing an immediate update on this story, but judging by the history of past updates that wouldn't be likely. Progress has always been slow because I think out the contents of the next chapters for many months in advance.


End file.
